[SPOILERS] Cornflakes Returns to Civ 4: Forget 1UPT, STACK OF DOOM!!!!!

[Old Harry]

You've got the healing right and I wouldn't call Woodsman suboptimal - you just need a few more fights to take W2 for a 2-mover that can give the neighbours a nasty surprise.

[Cornflakes]

Other than the DZ border there aren't many forests along the borders but I suppose I may find an opportunity at some point   ... but that will probably be beyond the era of the axe. Expenses are horrendous! I'll probably need to fill out my empire with cottages and courthouses before I can afford to conquer someone. Speaking of courthouses, I'm considering pushing to Code of Laws (cost 546) via Priesthood prerequisite ahead of Alphabet (390) + Currency (624). In the short term I give up:

• Foreign trade routes: +1 commerce at each city, or +7 (8?) total
  
• Extra trade route: +2 commerce at each city, or +16 total.
  
• Some flexibility through wealth & research builds
  

Courthouses will give me an average 3/turn savings per city for the cost of 120 hammers, comparable to the 3 net commerce gained passively from the currency route. But the beaker cost is half to get there! If I pick up Masonry + Monotheism first for a religion that will slow down CoL, but the Organized Religion will save me 25% production cost off the courthouse (16 hammers in actual savings since I'd be going from 1.25 forge multiplier to 1.5). Wow, that doesn't sound like much of a benefit considering it will take probably 15 turns longer to pick up Monotheism first. On the other hand with Masonry + Monotheism I can start trickling hammers into Pyramids for +125% failgold or eventually complete Pyramids if nobody challenges. There is plenty of time to decide because I will need 10 turns at least of saving gold before I can crank up research again.

   

Cambrian Explosion is gearing up to build the Oracle. All three workers put their second chop into the forests this turn. The spearman will get to 68/35 with the whip and swap from the floodplain farm to the grass mine, in order to get 33 overflow. I need 100 base production through the +50% bonus in order to complete Oracle. 33 + 3(20) = 93 + 8 natural production will be just enough . I also plenty of gold to run 40% slider to complete Priesthood, so no problem there. If Oracle doesn't fall this turn I'll have at least a coin flip chance. I am optimistic because I think I have figured out who my competition is and what they are planning:

   

I obtained Wetbandit's graphs this turn so I took a quick browse through all the graphs. When I got to the culture graph I noticed something interesting ... or rather, the lack of something I was expecting to see. Hinduism was founded T65 so even with a 2 turn delay in hitting the graphs I should be seeing at least 3 turns of Hinduism holy city +5 culture. At this stage when the creative civs are getting +12 total culture an increase of +5 should produce a clearly noticeable spike upwards in slope. But none of the know world exhibits and increase in culture. Thus BGN must have followed up his Stonehenge with Hinduism. Checking BGN's traits I see ORGANIZED, for the obvious Oracle > Code of Laws cheap courthouses. CoL requires Writing which BGN is presumably researching now while putting the necessary production into Oracle. BGN would have at least 40% and probably 60% arrow bonus into Writing but rival top GNP didn't drop from last turn indicating that he is still researching this turn. Therefore I'm optimistic about at least getting a coinflip for Oracle, and potentially an outright steal depending on how much gold BGN saved up before researching Hinduism.

   

Here's a look at the demographics screen with 5 turns to the T75 milestone. I'm growing 2 pop end of turn. I'll get at minimum 4-6 more pop before T75 but may whip 2 away into a worker (could re-grow 1 of those). Currently food is just 1 below average so these 4-6 additional pop should put me well above average even considering that my rivals will continue growing. I'll be a bit behind my target but experienced a bit of a setback with having to focus commerce for Oracle and the delayed terrace at Great Unconformity. I think I am set up well though for the late-opening T75-100. I have 4 terraces aiding quick growth. Happy cap of 8 already and optimistically 10 with Oracle > MC forges.

MFG is slightly below average but will bump a bit as I grow onto a couple mines. Probably will be slightly above average by T75. Most of my growth between T75-100 will be focused onto Cottages so MFG will continue to lag. GNP is middle of the pack which is right where expected. I shudder to think what my research rate would be without working Gold + Silver + Fur    I have been #1 land area for quite some time which puzzles me since I only just popped borders at Ice Age this turn. Surely the two creative civs with as many cities as I and BGN with Stonehenge should be exceeding me. I guess they must have settled more coastal regions while I only have 3 cities touching coast on the diagonal for minimal water tiles.

[Cornflakes]

T72: FINGERS CROSSED!

   

Priesthood finished to the exact beaker with 14 gold in the bank to spare, overflow from spear arrived as planned, and chops came in on schedule! Coin-flip chance at worst now, finger crossed for a positive outcome! Let's put this Industrious trait to use Landing Oracle for early cheap forges sounds like a good first stepping stone on the path to greatness. With the Emperor expenses this game it is quite possible that I get forges online 20-30 turns ahead of my rivals ... possibly even more than that since forges are an easy 2-pop whip for IND with 20 hammers invested, but but non-IND require 4-pop whip with 30 hammers or 2-pop with 70 hammers invested making forges much more costly and time consuming. The same in reverse can be said about the cost of Courthouses to me vs. my ORG rivals BGN, Wetbandit, and Elkad. I'll somewhat mitigate the construction cost of Courthouses by having 50% forge + organized religion boost but they will still be expensive!

Here's a current map stitch with the latest dotmap:

   

The happiness on this map is ridiculously easy to come by. I can easily achieve Gold + Silver + Fur + Ivory + 2x Forge + Wine + Religion + Temple by mid-classical (before touching the top of the tree) for size 13 cities! Calendar will add an additional 4. That is why I have chosen such wide spacing rather than cramming in filler fishing villages. YELLOW-A will likely be my next priority with 1st ring horses, stealing sheep for quick growth, 2nd ring Marble, hill plant for a defensive position which also invalidates the hill 1NE of gold as an option for Superdeath. I don't think Superdeath would take that site but it would be real pain if he did. Also Yellow will get me another build queue close to Woolly Mammoth from which to whip out emergency border defenders. I considered moving yellow 1SW to B, with the SE diagonal protected by the finger of the bay and the potential to steal the gold from Superdeath for the commerce yield but it is too early yet to begin making enemies. I'll plant the secure and amiable A site.

Next priority is ORANGE with all those resource tiles available. I'd like Sailing for a lighthouse and Moai Statues in a reasonable time after planting but that may not happen for a while with no apparent island cities possible for overseas trade bonus. LIGHT_BLUE is climbing higher on the priority list but still likely to be the last non-war city I found, perhaps shortly ahead of filler-MAGENTA to reach for those juicy floodplains. But I want to be sure of my defensive capabilities before acquiring "Our Borders Close Spark Tensions" diplo hit with Elkad.

GREEN is a potential crumple zone fortress against DZ and potential stepping-stone for war (by potentially allowing me to acquire the tile his axe is on and thereby gain access to the diagonal for a knight blitz). If nothing else the forests available to chop will repay the settler cost and the adjacent peak will give me good vision into DZ's territory, and it will be an expendable city that can take the brunt of an initial attack and give me time to respond and save the more valuable Cambrian Explosion. Probably a 50% chance that DZ founds a city on stone GREEN location before I get there.

[Cornflakes]

T72:    

   
   

Landed Oracle! Started forges nearly everywhere. I will also grow every city by T75 except Tectonics and have a solid shot at #2 or even #1 in food/MFG (except that I will immediately whip 2 of the forges since I'll be growing into unimproved tiles).

[Cornflakes]

T75: 

1st place in all relevant categories! This is with 100% research slider on a double-arrow tech and Oracle culture, but rival best has Stonehenge or one of the creative civs. I swapped a single citizen (newly grown this turn) from a grass forest to plains forest to get #1 on the MFG category. After taking the screenshot I dialed back the research slider and whipped off 3 pop but remain first in food and decent in the other categories. Here is the end of turn demos shot:

   

   

My score has skyrocketed recently and with Oracle and my demos I don't think I'll be able to slide into the mid game under the radar.

[Cornflakes]

T77:  

   

Superdeath founded the tight border city of Jeffrey Dahmer, which just a couple posts ago I figured he'd choose something less ... contentious. As a border city it does not really strengthen Superdeath's position from a defensive perspective. As long as I keep more culture in Woolly Mammoth than he gets in Alex Pichushkin I will have a perma-fork of the border cities AND can run a stack of knights 2E of Alex to also fork Ted Bundy. I diverted all EP spending to Superdeath now that I have everyone's graphs. I debated declaring a phony war and forcing Superdeath to whip archers. I have 2 axes and a spear that I could move threateningly. But I need peaceful expansion still. I do not feel overly threatened at the moment although I did move my zone-defense axe + spear closer to Mammoth.

Superdeath also completed Pyramids @ Ted Bundy. Good thing I haven't turned on research yet. I'm 90% sure now that I'm heading to Writing > CoL now, 5% Iron Working for Swords > Superdeath [ no, not really], 10% continue to Monotheism for Organized Religion. But probably CoL first for Courthouses to ease the costs of research > conquest. I will out-develop Superdeath and wait for a tech advantage to punish Jeffrey Dahmer.

I marked a tentative revised YELLOW dot border city. That site is a little weak on food with only tundra dear and a single farm-able grassland for 5F total surplus. With all the resources in the area that will be enough to get to a 20+ base hammer output around size 7-8-ish for a decent city

[Cornflakes]

T80: 

   

Notice the barb axe. I decided to leave 1 tile un-busted where barbs could spawn in order to farm earn XP. I'm starting to regret that choice now. The barb axe refused to attack me on the heavily fortified the forested hill. Normally that would be OK, I'd just leave my axe in the good defensive position and wait to see if the axe goes to bother Superdeath. Unfortunately I have a settler en route to the "Border City" location and it will arrive there next turn. I should have in the high-80's odds, maybe 90 with woodsman 1 promo on the current forest but that is by no means a sure thing. I don't have another axe ready to immediately clean up so if I lose this battle I could potentially be facing a mostly-healed C2 barb axe if I lose this roll.

Also seen is Superdeath finally cottaging Alex Pichushkin ... why was that not done 30 turns ago? Alex has been sitting there with no improved food and maybe only stone for an improved tile for ages upon end. I was confused at first with the decision o plant there but now that Superdeath has built Pyramids I see the purpose was purely to acquire Stone. It remains to be seen whether Superdeath can make the Pyramids pay off. There is plenty of happiness on the map so I'm skeptical about the ROI. I diverted all EP into Superdeath when he founded Jeffrey Dahmer so I should be able to see his research and keep tabs on his progress in about 15-20 turns (depending on if Superdeath reciprocates the EP spending).

   

1/7th of 100 is 14.2 so I'm right about average for population. I have 21 pop so there are 150 total pop in the world. Rival best is Wetbandit with 24 pop. I will grow to 24 pop next turn. Growth will start to level off somewhat as I run into the happy cap at Great Unconformity, and the useful_tiles_available cap at Ice Age. Elsewhere I continue to grow though and will be planing another city (hopefully) in 2 turns, followed by ORANGE dot peninsula city in about 10 turns. I could speed up Orange dot a couple turns by whipping but I'll run into finance troubles soon and growth is poor at Ice Age so might as well take the couple extra turns. I'll be scraping and clawing to Code of Laws as it is.

It's been a while since we have done a city-by-city overview so here you go:

   

Great Unconformity is growing up! I'll hit the happy cap at size 9 with the currently stacked whip anger. I just completed Writing this turn and was dumping hammers into Colossus for now while growing for eventual finishing or failgold. Probably should have swapped to a library now that writing came in this turn. I'll want the library before I turn on tech to Code of Laws. Plan is to start a worker next turn in order to pause growth until the next whip anger wears off. I have been focusing on cottages here. I debated building mines to work in the short term in order to keep the riverside tiles for watermills but I really need the commerce now in order to keep researching. By T90 all of those cottages/hamlets will have grown a size and I'll have added 2 more cottages. Notice that I'm working engineers here and at most cities. My plan is to trickle into engineers and try to get at least a 50/50 shot at the first 40% try at the 2nd GP to try a bulb along the Guilds path (Machinery or Guilds itself). First non-engineer GPerson may go to a golden age since I'll have just about filled out and grown/improved my core cities by the time it arrives.

   

Cambrian Explosion just whipped out a settler for the Superdeath_border_city. It is sadly down to size 2 again agonized long and hard over speeding up the settler by 5 turns vs. the commerce I'd lose while re-growing. Ultimately I decided that 5 turns of snowball growth at the new city was worth it. That new city has 5 good resource tiles to work including my horses and Marble. 5 turns quicker on the terrace and each pop growth will amount to a large difference in the long term. Cambrian will probably be the only city besides the capital that gets a library, at least in the intermediate term. Maybe if I land Colossus and work a bunch of coast somewhere I'll be able to justify the hammer investment, or if I don't have anything else useful to build I may slip in a library somewhere. Cambrian has been whipped mercilessly all game but baring an emergency I'll probably allow it to grown out onto all the mines now. 

   

Woolly Mammoth is an all_hammers_all_the_way city, other than the natural riverside commerce. And this has the long-term potential to be a true production powerhouse. Strategically Mammoth is located along what will likely be my most contentious border where the production of units will be most valuable, and the risk of pillaging raids on cottages is greatest. I do not plan on ever building a library here. The commerce wouldn't justify the cost and for culture I'd rather put the hammers to IND+stone/marble multipliers to get the greater output and wonder bonuses. Temple of Artemis is currently the only wonder that is currently unlocked (or will be unlocked in the next 20 turns). It's not a great wonder but it does provide +10 culture which will be welcome here and GPP points for a mixed pool. I could get probably a 40/30/30 engineer/prophet/merchant for GP #2 or 3. I'll start the Engineer specialists as soon as the forge is complete to get a head start on it. At size 10 (current happy cap) I can get 24 base hammers, 30 with forge, 54 with Heroic Epic.

I'll be adding improved sheep next turn with the newly-grown pop. 2 turns later I'll grow again and add the mine temporarily. I am building another farm on the eastern floodplain that will be improved to speed along growth. After that my workers will start knocking out mines in all of the hills. Within 15 turns I should reach the size 10 cap with 24 hammers per turn (or 22 per turn if I work the engineer instead of on of the PH mines).

   

Ice Age is stagnated out already at 4 pop, but at 15 hpt I can crank out 4 turn workers which seems reasonable. I have always seen this site as more of a stepping-stone to Tectonics I have given the sheep to Tectonics and it will remain there for a while except for an occasional turn where I swap it back to Ice Age if the couple extra food-hammers shave a turn off a settler or worker build. I'll probably go Settler (for ORANGE) > worker > worker here. After that maybe a workboat or two depending on how quickly I can arrange a border pop at Orange. The engineer specialist gets me to an even 12 base hammers for the forge bonus and trickles in to where I could potentially try for a 50/50 engineer/merchant or engineer/scientist for a bulb or rushing a wonder like Taj or even MoM if I haven't fired a GA yet and it remains available late. Probably wouldn't be until GP #4-5 so maybe this isn't worth thinking about. But growing another pop doesn't get me much value either with no more resources or mines to work.

   

Tectonics has been focused on getting the Granary out and supporting the run to Priesthood by working the silver. But now that Ice Age hit my size-4 target I've swapped the sheep here in all likelihood for the long term. I will have a workboat ready for Crabs when the borders pop (the health will not be unwelcome either). With 4 mines available I'm planning to grow straight to size 7 and then go from there. I'm planning to put Great Unconformity back on Colossus after building the library and at that point the coast becomes as good as working a village without the initial 30 turns of cottage growth. With the high happiness available on this map I think Colossus makes sense. Even though I won't have all that many coastal cities, those that I do have can easily grow to make use of all that is available. After the forge I'm considering growing on a barracks. The alternative is axe or spear but I'm already paying unit maintenance so each unit is an additional drag on the economy. Tectonics will be a decently productive city to pump units out of when it comes to that so the barracks will not be wasted.

And that's the empire! I think about half of the field has their 6th city down already, my 6th is 2 turns away from founding unless something goes wrong with the barb combat.

[Cornflakes]

Apparently the combat odds were better than I expected, 96% in my favor. I still got knocked down to 55 HP but no delay on settling I re-took 1st in food but really we are all very close right now. I met BGN this turn and he is at 6 cities already so actually I may be the last in the world to plant city #6. I'm not overly worried about being slow to my 6th city. I have 2 workers on site now at the new city to ensure that it gets off the ground quickly.

I noticed that JR4 has pre-chopped and roaded the border forests that I can see around his gold city. I wonder what that is for? Maybe a wonder chop for the culture?

[Cornflakes]

I thought long and hard over the last couple of turns about building 4 chariots to eliminate the eyesore of Superdeath’s border city Jeffrey D. One day that city will have to go, but now is not the time. My economy cannot support the maintenance costs of an army right now, chances are high that Superdeath’s woul move in a 2nd unit, and even if successful I wouldn’t gain much in the near or long term. As mentioned before, I don’t think Superdeath’s front is any more defensible with that city. In fact when I do eventually go on the offensive I think that I can pretty much ignore that border city in the initial action and thrust a stack of [knights?] directly towards capturing the Pyramids city. Force Superdeath’s to retreat his defensive army from the border city back to his capital, or keep it idle defending the border while I thrust at his more valuable core. Whenever I do eventually launch an attack I’ll probably thrust an initial fake advance against the border city to draw his troops that way before launching my knights deep in the east.

The important question then is: what are the minimum requirements for an attack. My empire is compact enough that Engineering roads will not gain me much. I can get Trebuchets from Machinery so I don’t need Construction. Avoiding Mathematics should allow me to build Feudalism and/or Guilds if I can manage coin-flip GEngineer (or two). Aesthetics for Parthenon + Shwedagon Palace for Pacifism (and launching a GAge with a non-engineer if I roll one) should allow me to guarantee at least 1 engineer. Do I spend the tech and hammers for Aesthetics to pick up those wonders? The culture would be marginally helpful at Mammoth and I’ll have decent-to-excellent production there. I think that’s worth it??

The immediate question now is: Alphabet > Currency vs. Code of Laws? If I knew I could get religion from CoL i’d Probably go that route. But with my poor tech rate now I’d say it’s a coin flip that an ORG rival bee lines it before I could get there. Also I’m soon to be out of things to spend hammers on other than military so it might be nice to have Research available to dump hammers into since already I am hurting from unit costs. Therefore I’m leaning Alphabet as next tech target. Especially since I could likely establish mutually beneficial trade with Wetbandit at a minimum (natural ally) and likely another neighbor.

[Cornflakes]

T84: Time for an overview shot which wasn't included in the city-by-city review a few turns ago.

   

The available land is starting to fill up. Settler for ORANGE dot peninsula is being built at Ice Age. I'm content to let that settler slow build over the next 4 turns rather that whipping it out quicker. Right now my tech pace is limping forward and I really cannot afford another city until I complete Alphabet. Alphabet is a 5-turn tech at 100% research and I'll need about 200 gold in the bank to make that run. By the time I reach Alphabet I'll have completed all my infrastructure builds and will have enough workers. It makes sense to spend a good portion of my hammers at that point on building research to power through Currency > Code of Laws in order to increase my overall income and decrease my expenses. 

After ORANGE, I don't really have any good city options left. I can put a filler north of Mammoth (or really squeeze in 2 fillers if I wanted to). I could put another filler west of Cuzco. Then I have border cities available towards DZ and Elkad. For now one tight border is enough I think. I don't want to overextend yet. I'm currently #1 in food, MFG, population, and land area. I need to consolidate with Currency + Code of Laws, work on the economy for a bit, and then assess the global position and determine the most likely path of military expansion.

Woolly Mamoth will finish a spear after the forge. There is currently a spear in queue slowly decaying but I decided that it was better to lose a few hammers from decay than pay the extra maintenance. I think now though as the land is filling up that it is worth it to carry a heavier garrison at such a critical location. I'll have 2 spears + 1 axe fortified inside, with a 2nd axe in zone defense. I'll start building Temple of Artemis next for the culture as previously discussed.

Superdeath beefed up the garrison of his border city with a 2nd archer so I'm happy with my decision to take the peaceful route for now. I have noticed more whips out of Superdeath recently and BGN did not play a double turn so I'm curious if there might be hostilities afoot. I don't have a complete enough knowledge of the map yet to know what the Superdeath/BGN border looks like ... actually let's take a moment to muse over the minimap from a screenshot I took this turn:

   

I am 100% certain that the actual borders do not match this since I am still missing a considerable amount of map information. But this at least gives me a good starting point. Based on this, Superdeath's territory would make the most natural addition to my empire. Two of Superdeath's 3-4 neighbors are already my neighbors, and a likely 3rd (DZ) is also my neighbor. That gives me a natural trading partner in Wetbandit, and a relatively large backlines area along the western body of water.

Elkad's land at first appeared better, but based on what I've drawn it looks like Elkad neighbors both Webandit and BGN and therefore conquering him puts me in contact with all neighbors and therefore monkey-in-the-middle with enemies on all sides. DZ and JR4 are worse since I have a smaller current border (more stable) and their land would open many more fronts to defend against.