TheHumanHydra Falls Behind [Spoilers]

[TheHumanHydra]

I met Pindicator:




Turned out to be a one-tile (wide and long) isthmus to another 'continent' NW of the copper there.

Somebody (Ichabod probably judging by score) grew to 4. Commodore and Pindicator are both still at 2.

I started on Mysticism, but that may have been fatigue speaking, as I've just realized I forgot I had been teching Pottery for a granary in city #2 in my sims, and I don't have time for that with Mysticism before I need to get AH for city #3. So let's just pretend I was agreeing with OH's suggestion of pursuing religion to pop borders. Now I need to do re-simming (also to take account of the copper) but I'm just too tired now.

[Old Harry]

Gark! I was only suggesting religion if it doesn't interfere with more important techs...

[TheHumanHydra]

So contrary to my protestations I indeed spent the evening simming.

1. It looks like if I switch to Wheel next turn things should still work out decently. City no. 2's granary whip-date is delayed a turn (though this had other, positive ramifications), while city no. 3 has to dump its first-turn production (two hammers) into a barracks, though its granary whip-date is not delayed. Tech path should be Wheel - AH - Pottery (eot30).

2. Does this look vaguely acceptable for t40? I know I can improve the worker micro; I got sloppier toward the end as I got tired and things entered the 'vague possibilities' stage, but the city-dates (turns 22, 30, 37, and 39), resource tiles improved (all of them save gold and northern deer), and infrastructure (granaries in the first three cities) should remain the same.

[Old Harry]

It looks good, but the only real way of knowing is when you see how the others are doing... I'd have a shot at it this weekend but we've got visitors, sorry!

I'd want a lot more roads and some cottages for the capital to share with cities 2 and 3, but that's just details. Moving the fourth city 1N to get deer 1st ring and have a three food city is a nice idea but means it can't share cottages. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends if there is a decent border city site further north and how that fits into the dotmap.

Questions:
How many workers?
Have you got any spare warriors to go exploring the south and west with?

[TheHumanHydra]

It looks good, but the only real way of knowing is when you see how the others are doing... I'd have a shot at it this weekend but we've got visitors, sorry!

That's okay!

I'd want a lot more roads and some cottages for the capital to share with cities 2 and 3, but that's just details. Moving the fourth city 1N to get deer 1st ring and have a three food city is a nice idea but means it can't share cottages. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends if there is a decent border city site further north and how that fits into the dotmap.

Oh, I thought that was your idea. It will be difficult to get more roads and cottages in near the capital because of the distances necessary for workers to travel from city no. 3 to any other potential city-sites (this leads in to your next question ...). Nevertheless the worker I have on the gold there could stay in the south, cottaging, while the worker who had improved the pigs hops over to the gold instead of running south. That'll probably get me another cottage in, that can be worked by the capital, by that date.

Questions:
How many workers?

Three. Obviously it will be possible to get more quickly circa t40 as the cities then are just building 'whatever'. I can't get more earlier without delaying either settlers or granaries, and since there are enough workers to improve the food resources at both final cities immediately, I'm not sure that would be optimal. Cities aren't really working unimproved tiles by t40 unless they're getting ready to whip.

Have you got any spare warriors to go exploring the south and west with?

No, but one could be produced easily. I have warriors garrisoning all cities but the cap (it's one-turning a warrior in the screenshot above), having escorted their settlers there. No other military as of yet.

[von Adlercreutz]

What caught my attention in that screenie is that the few cottages are outside capital BFC. Is that a by purpose; what city do you intend to use as your research center with possibly oxford and bureau? I think that cottage development should be prioritized in that city. Guangzhou seems like it could fit that role well with good food, lot of riverside and silver.

[Old Harry]

Good shout vA - Guangzhou would be a great candidate for a capital move around when Civil Service comes in . In which case those cottages there are great and I withdraw my previous quibble! (But still we want more roads!)

[Fintourist]

Good sim THH, it's of course impossible to judge from sidelines if that's a "perfect opening" or whether there is still much room for improvement. Anyways having 5 nice cities going by T40 is in principle very very good. Of course, the map is also very lush, but regardless which way I look at that screenshot, I can't make it look bad in my eyes. I think it might be possible to squeeze out your 4th worker a bit earlier and also settle your 6th city close to ~T40. Whether that works nicely in practice depends also on how much whip unhappiness you have in your cities. Having 10 pop points in your 3 core cities at T40 is of course nice, but that PH-wheat-fish city also has so much quality that getting it running earlier might be worth slaving some pop Maybe then you can grow your cities a bit more unless you keep finding more awesome city sites that simply scream for your IMP settlers..

Some random comments related to previous posts:
- having only 3 workers isn't necessarily bad at all. General opinion in RB is typically always "moar workers", but I strongly believe that investing in an extra worker in the early game can be very costly as well. Those foodhammers could have went into an earlier settler, brought a city to a higher size or something else that boosts your snowball much harder. That being said, if you found yourself thinking that "I would love to grow this city but it does not make sense to grow it because there won't be any improved tiles to grow onto", constantly working unimproved tiles or feel that you are not ready to found new cities because you don't get the necessary road done and there is nobody ready to improve its food resource: Then you probably haven't built enough workers I think it's a common thing here to see it as a micro failure if there is anywhere an unimproved tile being worked, but I think that working 1 unimproved tile every now and then is more of a good sign. It indicates that you are balancing on the limit and haven't spent unnecessarily resources for too large worker force (assuming that the reason you are not working an improved tile is having just a tiny bit too little worker resources and not a clumsy worker micro). However, if you go for fast 6 cities as speculated above, you probably need at least a 4th worker
- I like the fact that you are getting deer in your first ring in the north assuming you get the deer improved fast (looks like it) and it does not lead into too difficult border to defend or other major issues. OH is a big fan of shared cottages (for a good reason), but getting a good food resource improved fast is awesome as well.
- OH's question about extra warriors is very relevant. Having sentries outside your borders might be very valuable and make your enemies give up on an early surprise attack. Meanwhile, follow the power graphs and soldier point demos closely and if they scream you to improve your defenses, do it. Do not fall too much love in micro plans and domestic goals as many do! New turn, new micro plan.. :P
- The cottage N of Shanghai: If worker micro allows, it would be better NW of Shanghai. Shared improvements typically make your life (micro) a lot easier.. Based on same logic, if you just need to chop a random forest for Beijing, G or Shanghai the tile E-E of Beijing is a nice candidate. That tile is shared by all those 3 cities and again having a cottage there provides flexibility.
- Do not underestimate trade route gold, it's not the biggest commerce source in the world in the early game, but if defensive reasons are not enough, that's another source of motivation for connecting your cities with roads. (it is very possible that is is more efficient to delay them until after t40 and simply run after food resources, but you want those roads pretty soon)
- And forgetting Mysticism for now is probably the best The fact that you can get resources so nicely in your first ring is another argument for not stressing too much about culture.
- Things look promising!

[TheHumanHydra]

Thank you very much for your comments, von Adlercreutz, Old Harry, and Fintourist, and Fin for your encouragement.

vA, I must confess I had not thought that far ahead. The cottages are there simply because that's where the workers were when they had spare turns to put into cottaging (though, to tell the truth, those cities benefitted from the cottages in these early, pre-multiplier turns far more than the capital, with its much stronger hammer-tiles to work with Imp, would have). Now that you mention it, though, Guangzhou does look a very promising bureau-cap; I shall keep that it mind, thanks.

Fintourist, I'm going to direct my further sims toward the goals you mentioned, namely another worker and the sixth city soon after t40, as well as refining my worker micro (more roads for OH!). I don't know if I'll be able to get out more warriors what with the granaries and (more) workers and settlers to build, but I'll keep that in mind (and watch the graphs - just got them on Comm). Re: the Shanghai cottage - I actually did chop/cottage the tile you mentioned in most of my run-throughs, but found Shanghai was getting way too much overflow on turns it needed to grow (instead of build workers/settlers). I will probably try to integrate it back in with the goal of getting another worker sooner, maybe letting the city sit at size 2 (after whips).

I think that's everything. I don't know when my next simming session will be; I know what I'm doing for the next few turns, so it may wait till my days off (Monday - Tuesday), unless it strikes my fancy earlier. I'll keep you guys posted.

[TheHumanHydra]

This is several turns' worth of report, I guess, since there hasn't been that much to report on.

I haven't really felt like doing any more simming, which is all right I guess because I'm still playing through turns I had predetermined.

I switched to The Wheel after my one-turn misadventure into Mysticism (we all wish we could forget some stage of our lives ...), and, having completed it, have moved on to Animal Husbandry (my earlier sims showed I could not get Animal Husbandry to show the location of horses for dotmapping purposes before I needed The Wheel for worker micro). Pottery is next.




After chopping the grassland forest 1E of Tall Poppy to get the settler out eot19 with exact hammers, as shown in my written micro, the worker moved 2S to chop the grassland hill forest there into another worker. Then he moved 1SE to begin camping the deer for Greener Grass, which the second worker has moved to help complete next turn (t24). I know the deer is a weaker tile than the riverside corn, but the cost in worker-turns spent moving (before and after) to improve it first was too great. This way the workers 'flow' nicely from south to north as the second and third cities are founded, improving the key tiles, with a minimum of wasted worker-turns, as they go.

So after completing the camp together next turn, they will road the deer, then use the road through the second city to start improving the corn together immediately, then move north to improve the pigs when the third city is founded. Meanwhile, the capital has dumped its overflow from the second worker into the settler for the third city, and next turn will switch to a 2t warrior to escort him, while growing onto the copper, before finishing the settler. Unusual, I know, but it worked out much more efficiently this way (I played around with the capital's build order a lot).




Woven into all this, as you can see, I founded my second city, Greener Grass, on t22. It has started on a warrior, which might seem a weak build compared to a granary, but I found, similar to how I found I could not get Animal Husbandry before I needed The Wheel, I could not get The Wheel and Pottery before I needed Animal Husbandry for the third city. The warrior actually ends up being nicely timed to escort Greener Grass' eventual settler to the fifth city-site down the road, and most importantly simply allows the city to grow.

Unfortunately, from a not-too-close reading of the demographics and score, I believe several of the other players must have founded their second cities a couple turns before I did. This is Not Good from a snowball perspective, especially considering I have the Imperialistic trait, and since I can't start on a granary in my second city right away to jumpstart its growth (but then again, most of the other players probably can't either, if they can can't also chop/whip, given the array of starting techs we have here). My gut instinct is that this is because I had to/chose to (Old Harry and I worked out that it was best) build a work boat to improve the fish before moving on to the settler (I no longer believe the starts are mirrored at all).

That seems to be all for domestic news. Hopefully it was clear enough. Now, a report from our foreign affairs desk ...

As you know, I have already met Commodore, across the water to the west, and Pindicator, coming from the isthmus to the northwest (Pindicator's scout is currently hugging my borders, circling clockwise, having killed off some of the local wildlife). Last turn I sighted dazedroyalty's borders to my immediate northeast:




I tried edging around them without making contact, because he is close and I didn't want him realizing I'm here and targeting me with war chariots, but this turn I had the misfortune to run into one of his warriors. Oh well, hi, dazed.




I don't know whether it's good or bad that my micro-plan/proposed dotmap involves settling so heavily toward him (exclusively so ...) early. On the one hand, it does lock down our borders (and I believe I can lock him out of that area to the northwest with my westernmost (deer/pigs) plant); on the other, it might make me a target for the aforementioned war chariots. I shall have to see about getting out some spears sooner rather than later (and certainly before axes, unless the barbs give me trouble). Thoughts on these geopolitics would be appreciated.

I also met Ichabod this same turn, meaning I've now met everyone. His scout approached from the south, as you can see in the screenshot.

Oh, and finally, I forgot to take a screenshot of this (), but Pindicator declared war on Commodore. Probably nothing, but it's more dramatic to declare ...

So it begins again.



(For my chances in this game.)