[SPOILER] Ikhanbod

[Ichabod]

Turn 46 greeted me with the message that Temple of Artemis was built in a faraway land. I expected it to be Azza and I was right. Good play by Azza. He was unhappy, so he had to focus on hammers. He is already losing money, so he had to invest those hammers in something without upkeep cost. And he's Siam, which benefits from CS more than the others. 2 CSs wanted ToA and he built it. Very well played. Azza seems to be my main competition for this game.

Let's take a look at his situation. He went for Liberty, not Tradition. I think Tradition wins, but his choice wasn't bad. He's losing a lot of money per turn, so he'll have to do something about it soon. If not, he'll start to lose buildings, right?

Notice in the SS below that Serdoa is already on the Medieval age. That's Theology tech.




Azza and Serdoa have money problems. Pindicator has a better situation.




I exchanged embassies with Azza, so I get to take a look at his capital. It's a very production heavy capital and special for building Wonders with the Marble. I'll have to reach CS quick to be able to snatch Chichen Itza. He's receiving CS food, so he's friends with Venice (not ally though). This is certainly a very powerful early capital, with salt and marble. But my Capital is better on the long run, I think. It has more growth potential with the big river.




An important thing is that I can't lose this barb camp to Azza. He'd become allies for a long time with Venice if it happened, plus friends with Jerusalem. I'm moving 2 archers + that warrior (2 rough terrain promos) on the SS to this area. I think I have the camp secured. I can take my time because I'm waiting for Jerusalem to get to 10 influence from the pledge to protect thing (currently at 5, I think - another 4 turns to go), When everyone is in position, I'll start attacking the Brute, taking special care to not let its health get down to a point where Azza can snatch it.




That's Azza overview. I think my position is slightly better, but I can't let my guard down.

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Here's my tech situation (it's 2 turns late on my research in Drama). 2 people know Drama already, so i'm getting a nice discount. I'm the only one with HR and no one has Currency. Pindicator is the only one with maths besides me. I think Azza has Drama (the other one is Serdoa for sure - he has theology). I think I'm the closest to CS and Chichen Itza, but I might be wrong, if Pindicator is the one with Drama. I still think I'll get there faster, though.




My next SP is due in 6 turns, way before I need it to get CI. It'll give me 1 extra happiness, because my Capital will be size 10. Do I get an extra happiness for a city size 6 and a city size 4 or the 10 pop have to be on the same city for it to work?




Some possible expansion sites after my 4 planned cities. Pindicator's capital, Ivory city near Serdoa and a Fur city in that Peninsula next to Pindicator. The city on the red X will be incredibly powerful!










Here's the city of Sentenza. My planned size for it is 6, but it can grow a bit more. It'll finish a worker and then a Stable. Yes, a stable. It'll add 3 base production, in the sheep and both horse tiles. It costs 67 hammers, so it'll pay itself in 23 turns. But, I'll build horsemen for a long time after the stable, so the 15% production will make the payoff window be smaller (before Chivalry and Keshiks, which is what I need).

At size 6, city will work:

Banana plantation - 5/0/0
Hill sheep - 2/3/0
Plains horse - 1/4/1
Grass horse - 2/3/1
Two mines - 0/6/0
City center - 2/1/1

That's 17 production per turn at stagnation. But, with granary and possible maritime food, the city will keep on growing. 17 production per turn is pretty decent, especially for a size 6 city. For now, I'll grow the city, enjoying the bananas tiles (1 of them will go to the 4th city soon) and waiting for the workers to improve it.




I'll give overview of my 3rd city on the next update. It's also planned as a production city.

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Demographics:




Overview at end of turn. I've set my last city to grow, so it won't interfere on the food of my other cities. Next turn, WB will be ready and will improve the Pearls. Capital will go Library.

[Ichabod]

Anything the lurkers want to see in an update?

[T-hawk]

Let's take a look at his situation. He went for Liberty, not Tradition. I think Tradition wins, but his choice wasn't bad. He's losing a lot of money per turn, so he'll have to do something about it soon. If not, he'll start to lose buildings, right?

No, that's Civ 4. The penalty for going bankrupt in Civ 5 is that the deficit gets subtracted from your research beakers instead. The game says you'll start losing units but I have not seen that actually happen.

My next SP is due in 6 turns, way before I need it to get CI. It'll give me 1 extra happiness, because my Capital will be size 10. Do I get an extra happiness for a city size 6 and a city size 4 or the 10 pop have to be on the same city for it to work?

Have to be in the same city. Basically, the 10th citizen in each city doesn't count for unhappiness.

Anything the lurkers want to see in an update?

I think you're already covering about everything imaginable.

[Adbekunkus]

Anything the lurkers want to see in an update?

?
How about it?

[Rowain]

No, that's Civ 4. The penalty for going bankrupt in Civ 5 is that the deficit gets subtracted from your research beakers instead. The game says you'll start losing units but I have not seen that actually happen.

It does happen. If the empire runs a certain deficit (don't know the exact number) at 0 gold 1 unit/turn will get disbanded. IIRC it will get sold so you then have a bit more money in the treasury (if your deficit is not too high . Usually it takes the cheapest unit.

[Ichabod]

Anything the lurkers want to see in an update?

?
How about it?

That's certainly in my plans, but it'll take a bit longer. It wouldn't be sensible for me not to wait for Keshiks to attack someone. Yeah, Keshiks are that good. I'll do an update showing how I plan to attack + troop composition. It's not the same as the real thing, but at least it's something.

[Ichabod]

Serdoa built the Oracle (1 free Social Policy). It seems his Wonder ways didn't leave him in Civ 5 . Just kidding, obviously. Much like Pindicator, Serdoa kind of got hit by the map generator. He accepted my embassy trade, so I got to look at his capital.




Low food + no river sucks hard. I guess he could have built farms on those grassland tiles to grow the capital a bit more, but it's really ugly to do it (especially if you are used to Civ 4 and how no resource farms kind of suck). So he used his production heavy start to get wonders. I think his science rate is pretty high. Let's try to guesstimate things.

Palace gives 3 science. Great Library gives 3 science + a library. Size 6 capital with library gives 9 science. I'm sure he has a Pyramid (Maya UB), which gives 2 science. So, only his capital gives at least 17 science (I make 18 per turn between everything). Azza is the player with most tech (the literacy demographic shows how much % of the tech tree you completed - Azza has 18%, rival best, I have 16%) according to demographics, but that's probably flawed. Why? Because the demographic stat counts Animal Husbandry the same as Fusion, as far as I know. Serdoa has some high value techs, like Drama, Philosophy and the Medieval tech Theology. So he probably has the highest beakers. Besides, if Serdoa indeed has the National College, as I considered before, his capital alone would be making 30 beakers. That's quite a lot! Hopefully my head start can give me CS faster (I really want Chichen Itza - good thing I made that 6 turn build plan - I don't think anyone can build it faster than me, even with marble).

But Serdoa expansion prospects look grim. All these wonders probably made him worker low and expansion low (he has 8 pop total, I have 16 at eot 49). Besides, his land won't give him the best medieval bonus, which is the CS food on river farms. And, finally, his capital seems undefensible from a Keshik horde (basically all plains tiles from my side).

I can't really understand why Serdoa went for Theology. If he's going for Education, he needs Civil Service too and that's way more useful than Theology (his second city has to be on a river). Maybe he wants the free Great Prophet from Hagia Sophia. But what can a religion do for him right now? I really don't know. Anyway, I need to get my Pantheon soon, otherwise I can miss on one, if Serdoa is indeed going for Religion (as far as I understand, you can't found a new Pantheon if a religion was already enhanced by another player). And I need to think about what I want too.

Even if Serdoa's science rate seem high right now, my expansion first strategy will reach him soon. My capital is building a library (I need 4 more turns). When it's ready, my capital will be size 10 already, and I'll be making 25 beakers per turn. So the difference won't be so high. After CS, which I want to reach soon, I'll take my time to reach Chivalry, which isn't very far. After that, I can tech whatever I want, usually benefiting from the strange "already researched" bonus. And, frankly, with Keshiks, I can just conquer Serdoa and his wonders. My map position is way superior for this strategy and Serdoa's detour to Theology will cost him on the military race.

If Pindicator's power is too high when I reach keshiks, I can probably divert them to Serdoa, which I don't think will have a way to stand against me.

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And the usual question time: is there a standard upgrade cost formula or is it unit per unit? If there's one, what is it? I want to know how much it'll cost to upgrade Horsemen to Keshiks.

Another question is: does Keshiks (UU) obsolete Horsemen? Knights do, but I'm not sure if it changes for an UU. I wonder because Keshiks can't do the final blow to cities and I want some fast units to do it, so it'd be useful to have horsemen avaiable.

And finally: if I reduce a city life to 0 with ranged attacks, will it be too costly to take it with, let's say, a horsemen? Or would it be easy? And if a possible counter attack happens after I take the city, what are the defenses of a newly captured city? Maybe I'll need some pikemen to attack Pindicator.

[Rowain]

I can't really understand why Serdoa went for Theology.

He is Maya.

And finally: if I reduce a city life to 0 with ranged attacks, will it be too costly to take it with, let's say, a horsemen? Or would it be easy? And if a possible counter attack happens after I take the city, what are the defenses of a newly captured city? Maybe I'll need some pikemen to attack Pindicator.

It depends what defences the city has (wall, castle etc). You can conquer a 0-life-city with a horseman but he will get hurt and once there is a castle in it he has a chance to die instead of capturing it.
Upon capture the city regains some of its life but its defences aren't that good. At least I witnessed cities changing hand several times on consecutive turns until one side run out of steam.

[Ichabod]

I can't really understand why Serdoa went for Theology.

He is Maya.

That's a 1000 words player review without the most important thing being considered. Damn, if he gets a Great Engineer first, he can probably steal the Chichen Itza from me. Is there a way to see when a Great Person was born in other player's land? Hopefully he goes for Notre Dame and not Chichen Itza. Can't say Maya going for Chichen Itza is out of character, though.

Well, Serdoa's strategy just makes a lot more sense now. And it seems way stronger. Maybe I'll have to rush him first. It won't be so difficult if things stand as they are now.

Are Maya UA great people free or they increase the cost of naturally produced GPs?

And finally: if I reduce a city life to 0 with ranged attacks, will it be too costly to take it with, let's say, a horsemen? Or would it be easy? And if a possible counter attack happens after I take the city, what are the defenses of a newly captured city? Maybe I'll need some pikemen to attack Pindicator.

It depends what defences the city has (wall, castle etc). You can conquer a 0-life-city with a horseman but he will get hurt and once there is a castle in it he has a chance to die instead of capturing it.
Upon capture the city regains some of its life but its defences aren't that good. At least I witnessed cities changing hand several times on consecutive turns until one side run out of steam.

Interesting. Since this is MP, I doubt I'll be seeing walls and castles, but it's definetely something to watch for. Maybe using 1 or 2 pikemen is more safe than horsemen.

[T-hawk]

The Maya free GP do increase the main counter.

I'm not aware of anywhere in-game to see GP born to other civs.