[SPOILERS] Yuris125 tries to win a game of Civ5 before it fades away

[yuris125]

T0

Moved the Warrior SE-E as planned




This did make me pause. There's my second luxury in truffles, and settling on the hill puts it in the second ring. However, I don't see any 2-food tiles in second ring of the hill. The fish is still there to work at the start, but what would I work at size 2? That 2/0/2 silk tile in the north is much better to have in the second ring than the 1/1/2 truffles

Moving Settler onto the stone and seeing another second ring 2/1 tile in the northern sheep confirmed my plan. Settling on the stone is best




And that's a hut SW-SW from the Warrior - will pick it up next turn. Fingers crossed for culture...

City screen shows that the northern Silk tile is the next one to be taken by the tile picker. I was worried there - I read that it favours plains over grassland for some reason, and it could've went to the western silk instead. But it is going the right way

[yuris125]

I didn't want to post new updates until I was certain the game was finally properly under way. But now that the save is with Nicolae, who had no problems before, hopefully I can relax (and not jinx the game by posting it)

As discussed in the tech thread, huts in Civ5 are not part of the map, they're randomly regenerated when a new save is created. In the latest save, the hut ended up being right on the first where I was moving my Warrior




So I popped it




Better lucky than good

I'm considering taking Tradition opener instead of Liberty opener when I can pick my first policy in two turns. The main reason is that the capital doesn't have many good tiles to work in the first ring. It needs its second ring, and +3 culture from Tradition opener would help much more than +1 from Liberty opener. I will likely pass on it, because while Tradition opener doesn't cost as much as most extra policies, it does slow down policies down the line, and in my test games I was unable to get through the 4 policies I need in Liberty and start investing into Piety before I needed to get my first Shrines up. But still have time to think... getting the first new tile on T3 rather than T6 is tempting....

[yuris125]

So... after weeks of setting up, fighting Civ5's bugs and lack of MP support, and starting the game on GMR 4 times the save finally made it round to me. And I finally can type those magical words:

TURN 1

So to celebrate this momentous occasion...

I....

Moved the Warrior




Yeah.. perhaps that was **slightly** overhyped

But at least I found a cow and a wheat, decent tiles. And if you stare at the image really hard, you will see that there's a city state border in the south-eastern fog

The scoreboard shows a couple of interesting things. Firstly, oledavy and Ichabod didn't settle on T0. Maybe moved to some kind of hill tile and will settle next turn? Although Ichabod wandered around for half-dozen turns before settling last game. Secondly, HAK and Pindicator have an extra point over Nicolae and me. Considering how insane Civ5's scoring system is, I have no idea what it means, but my best guess is that they have all land tiles in the capital's first ring. There's no way to see this in the demos, as the "Land" entry in Civ5 counts all tiles a player controls, land or water

Speaking of demos




Not much to analyse atm, it will show a bunch of 0s in the "worst" column while we have civs without a city. One number that concerns me is that 7-point GNP. I think settling on a gold resource would give 4 gold on the city tile, so maybe that's what's going on. Or maybe someone settled on a luxury and is working another luxury. But 7 is a lot of GNP for T1

[yuris125]

I ran the numbers and played a test game, and I'm convinced it's correct to take Tradition opener as my first policy. In the test game, it delayed Collective Rule only by 2 turns. And in that game, I didn't need to pop borders. In this game, I very much do - all my best tiles are in the second ring. Working the bare hill in the first ring is acceptable, but I would much rather work that 2/0/2 silk or one of the 2/1 tiles. So even if I do delay the second city by 2 turns, it's acceptable trade-off for growing the capital and making it work better tiles earlier in the game

That's the conclusion, now here's the math

The first 4 policies on quick speed cost 15, 20, 40, and 70 culture. The 5th policy is difficult to include in calculations at the moment, because it will be taken after I found the second city, so it will depend on how long it will take to walk the Settler to the spot, and how quickly I can get a Monument up there. The first 4 policies are all we need to look at to understand how taking Tradition opener affects Collective Rule date

So let's say I take Tradition opener on T2. This gives me 4 c(ulture)pt - 1 from palace and 3 from the policy. In 5 turns, on T7, I get the next policy - Liberty opener. For 3 turns, T7-9, I get 5cpt - 15 culture on T10. I finish the Monument on T10 (it will be around that), going up to 7cpt. On T13, I'm at 43 culture, and take Republic. 10 more turns to get 70 culture to the next policy, getting Collective Rule on T23

Now let's look at taking Liberty opener on T2. This puts me on 2cpt. I have 16 culture on T10, when I finish the Monument, which gives me 4cpt. Next turn, T11, I can take Republic, and need 10 more turns to get 40 culture for the next policy, getting Collective Rule on T21

If I didn't get an early culture ruin, ignoring Tradition and going straight for the Liberty opener would've been correct. But the early culture ruin means I start getting Tradition's 3cpt earlier, making it almost free

Almost, but not quite. Taking Tradition still slightly slows me down, and if other things were equal, I would've skipped it. But they aren't. Expanding borders is going to be extremely helpful for my capital, and Tradition opener is the best way to speed it up in the early game. And that's the reason I am going to take it

[yuris125]

T2

Moved the Warrior




That's a lot of plains and useless desert...

The city state is Mombasa (maritime). Will meet then next turn, then go north. The plan for the Warrior is run around the lake before coming back to the capital for defence

The score shows that everyone settled now. Ichabod's 21 points, 1 less than me, is good enough to confirm my theory that 1-point score differences come from having more/fewer water tiles in the territory

The interesting number is oledavy's large score increase. This is either a citizen or a tech popped from a hut




It's a citizen

Not too concerning - with Dave settling 1 turn after me, and me naturally getting the second citizen on T4, it doesn't put him that far ahead. I think my culture ruin was more impactful..

...speaking of which, I have the large(ish) score increase this turn from picking that first policy. Tradition opener, as discussed

[T-hawk]

I ran the numbers and played a test game, and I'm convinced it's correct to take Tradition opener as my first policy. In the test game, it delayed Collective Rule only by 2 turns.

Do it if you want to, but most of the math I've ever seen and run on my own has taking Tradition for just the opener as a mistake. It never pays for itself, not even close, the policy costs just escalate so much. This move bumps everything else in Liberty back one policy which will come to 10 or 20 turns by the time you get to the later ones and the finisher.

Do the math beyond Collective Rule. How much later will you get to Citizenship, Meritocracy, Republic, and the Liberty finisher? Or if that's not your plan, what else are you delaying?

[yuris125]

The big reason I took Tradition is to expand borders asap. Taking Tradition allows me to work the 2/0/2 silk as soon as the city grows to 2, and I much prefer working that to working a 0/2 hill for 6 turns. I understand the trade-off, and understand that it comes at a cost of slowing down later policies. But between my UB (culture-producing Temple) and religious buildings (be it Pagodas or Mosques) I should have enough culture production in mid-game not to fall behind. Whereas falling behind due to working low-food tiles in the early turns was a real possibility

[yuris125]

Taking Tradition also gives me an option to skip the Monument and build a Worker before Stonehenge. On Prince, Worker-steal will come even later than T20, which was the average steal date in my test games on King, so building one is definitely worth considering

[yuris125]

T3

Met Mombasa, got my 30g, then found pearls. There will be my city on this coast in medium-distant future (not a high priority, it will probably be backfill)

[yuris125]

T4

Border expansion + scouting Warrior revealed the coast curves, and there's ocean to the north of the capital. So safe from that direction, at least for a while




Also pictured: that planned coastal location. Another annoying spot with good tiles in the second ring (plains cow is a 2/2 tile when improved, so just as bad in Civ5 as in Civ4), I would've preferred the spot where the Warrior currently is, but the capital location makes it illegal. In any case, I think this city will only be founded 50ish turns down the line. But wanted to show it now and get it out of the way

The first Scout is out and heading south. Started on the second, who will go NW