[SPOILERS]Luddite: A Man, A Plan, An Also-Ran

[luddite]

I just love this city


And my demos... I'm sticking out like a sore thumb right now.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Chat between Luddite and I, lest everyone think I have completely ignored my "teammate" duties:

Charlie: so do you think i should still go for the great wall or skip it and just build more archers?

me: Depends on if you have stone connected to that city and how fast you can do it. It is a guessing game obviously. If you had BW'ing, I would definitely say build TGW, because you could whip out archers. Without it, it gets dicier. But if someone else plants on the opposite hill, you will loose control of some very valuable tiles, and be able to be 1-moved.

Charlie: well, I'll get culture control of that hill in 6 turns so there's no worry there and I'll get BW in 3 or 4 turns

me: You will get it for that hill on the marble side?

Charlie: Oh I was going to build great wall in the city that just finished stonehenge the marble city will build the Oracle

me: Oh, I was saying build it in the Oracle city to get cultural expansion faster. But if you can get Oracle soon, then that works the same. The goal is to just grab cultural control of that area so that you aren't sharing it.

Charlie: yeah the great wall only adds +2 culture anyway so it's pretty useless for culture

me: OK, then I would skip it then.

Charlie: mostly I just think it would look cool to have the great wall on the outside border

me: Yeah, take a pass then if you have other plans for culture.

Charlie: yeah. And I'm going to be short on units for quite a while with my capital building the pyramids

me: Yeah, definitely pump units then.

Charlie: Really wish I was egypt right now. Being able to run priests through the obelisk would be incredibly helpful

me: Instead of citizens?

Charlie: yeah, but also just to get the golden age fast. I mean, I know it's inefficient to use the golden age so early but it would save me 2 turns of anarchy

me: 3 actually, right? One for slavery, one for religion. One for Rep

Charlie: yeah- well i probably won't convert to the religion until i can get a golden age just doesn't seem that important. Arg maybe i should wait and switch to slavery and rep at the same time. i think i can finish the pyramids in like 10 turns

me: Umm, that might be better than using the GAge. But your food surplus begs for slavery.

Charlie: heh I know. I feel like such a noob, using citizens for production

me: In some ways, you have been strategically great and tactically horrid this game.

Charlie: yep well, that's what happens when I deliberately don't do any sandboxing

me: One worker. Jesus. What a nub.

Charlie: heh, and it's mostly just been making roads

me: That is actually the brilliant part of the two pink dots. The tiles there don't require worker turns.

Charlie: yeah, exactly. That's the real reason I have such a large food lead right now, I just haven't needed to invest anything in workers

me: Like I said, if you had slavery 10 turns ago, you would be ahead by an insane amount.

Charlie: yeah. If I had picked Mali and done a conventional opening everything would be much easier but it seems to be working out anyway

Charlie: so I'm gonna be first in every single demo next turn lol

me: Yeah, your gamble is certainly paying off so far. I just wish you had BW'ing, because you could so blow everyone else out of the water

Charlie: I'll get it next turn!

me: Yeah, but you could've had what, two good rounds of slaves already?

Charlie: yeah probably

me: That would be like, another settler, another worker, and two more archers give or take?

Charlie: well maybe not quite that good, bear in mind i still don't have any happiness, so every whip basically takes away a pop

me: So you would've sacrificed some decent tiles I suppose

Charlie: yeah, i wouldn't be able to work the lake tiles, but it definitely would have given me more production

me: Do you have Masonry already?

Charlie: yes, I can send you the save if you feel like poking around

me: Let me hit you up once I am at home. At your pace, you will play six turns by then

Charlie: heh probably not

me: Your demos would be approaching dogpile territory in a diplo game.

Charlie: heh, the lack of diplomacy is saving me again!

me: indeed

TL;DR: Luddite is playing like a total noob and winning anyway due to the unique aspects of this map.

[Kyan]

TL;DR: Luddite is playing like a total noob and winning anyway due to the unique aspects of this map.

Mist maps are not for the faint hearted. This thread is fun and your start is certainly... unusual. Better yet, it's working so more power to you. Now to go on and finish the job. Best of luck and please keep this updated so I can selfishly continue to enjoy reading it.

[luddite]

Well I did warn you guys that I'd be doing some weedy micro, right?

I think I'm really bad at playing by instinct. I pretty much need sandboxes to put together good micro plans, especially when I'm playing outside of my comfort zone with such a weird opening like this.

[luddite]

Alright, here's a tough question. I will (hopefully) finish the Oracle and the Pyramids in 7 turns. So what do I want as my oracle tech?

The standard play of course is metal casting. But I don't know if I have time to build forges right now- I really need to get more defense, and I don't even have any granaries yet (yeah yeah I'm a noob I know).

I could take HBR with the oracle, and meanwhile tech writing and mathematics, going towards construction. That would be nice, although it seems like kind of a waste to oracle such a cheap tech.

I could also research HBR normally, and take monarchy. Slightly more expensive, and it would get me wine for +1 happiness. I should be OK for happiness after switching to Rep, though.

[pindicator]

Just throwing this out there but what about a Math Oracle if you're headed to Construction?

[luddite]

Just throwing this out there but what about a Math Oracle if you're headed to Construction?

Oh yeah, that's a good possibility too. But it costs the same as HBR, and to do that I'd have to delay HBR several turns.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Another chat:

Charlie: sheesh some teammate you are, badmouthing me in my own thread!

me: lol. Take Metal Casting with Oracle. More beakers.

Charlie: yeah, almost twice as expensive

me: That is a better play I think, both from a beakers standpoint, and if you have gold, that is one extra happy.

Charlie: I have gold and gems so the extra happy would be really nice, the only thing that worries me is the fear that I might get dogpiled sometime soon, in that case, I shouldn't waste time building forges

me: Well, the problem is, if you get dogpiled, you lose anyway. And as seen in Pb6, people are in prisoners dilemmas. No one really wants to be stuck spending their resources on the attack.

Charlie: heh, true

me: With this map, hard to make many useful territorial gains that are safe.

Charlie: Scooter is the biggest danger by far. He might actually be able to capture my northern cities with his war chariots

me: Do they get odds on archers on a hill? I doubt it.

Charlie: no, but two of them would almost certainly beat an archer

me: If you are willing to stack unhappiness, you could probably get 5-6 archers in either city

Charlie: I'm also worried he might just drive past them and go right to my capital though

me: Once you push out those cultural borders, you should get 2-3 turns notice

That would be dumb. You would have ages to whip your capital

Charlie: well still. It seems terrible to try and just turtle inside my cities with archers

me: You have the typical dilemma in these games. You are in the lead. You can play it conservatively, and maybe keep your lead. Or you play aggressive, and you either win or lose. Better to go out with a quick loss than a slow stagger to 2nd or 3rd.

Charlie: i need to be able to attack out also, the thing is I have such a huge lead right now I'm not at all worried about falling behind gradually. Even if I get behind on research for a while, I could just power like crazy with the pyramids and the lakes

me: How long will it take to tech HBR? 6 turns?

Charlie: yeah something like 6 turns, same as the oracle

me: Why not just tech HBR as soon as BW is done. That will delay it by what, two turns?

Charlie: well ok, but then what do I use the oracle for?

me: The biggest tech that is useful to you. Probably Metal Casting.

Charlie: I guess I could tech writing, and oracle math

me: You will want it eventually, it could be useful immediately once you have some troops, and it is expensive. Your tech is obviously no concern, but MC would help shore up the production. And you could run Engineers too

Charlie: yeah.... I just don't want to be stuck building forges if I'm about to get attacked, and I mean, I haven't even built any granaries yet. those are probably a bigger priority than forges lol

me: Oh wow, you are a noob.

Charlie: >.< It's not like I needed more food lol

me: No, but that will hinder the usefulness of slavery. You might want to whip granaries and overflow out archers

Charlie: yeah I was gonna do something like that. It's just the lack of happiness realy limits everything right now

me: Gold in how many?

Charlie: Hmm I could oracle monarchy

me: I do like Monarchy

Charlie: Well assuming I get the pyramids, I'll get rep in 6 or 7 turns

me: Expensive, but HR conflicts with Rep

Charlie: monarchy would get me one extra happiness with wine

me: Rep will get your 3 free happy in each city right?

Charlie: yeah

me: So Monarchy isn't super useful

Charlie: then I'll hook up gold and gems pretty soon after rep

me: This is all coming back to me slowly.

Charlie: haha, pulling you back in!

me: You will burn in hell for it.

Charlie: OK, I guess I'm not as good at fiddly micro. But I'm not a total noob either >.<

me: You are kind of a noob. One worker. No granaries. No slavery. But I cannot tell if that is because you are a noob, or sly like a fox.

Charlie: I do noob stuff but I have good reasons for it lol

TL;DR: Luddite is upset about me making fun of him, yet keeps doing totally nubbish things like failing to build any infrastructure or workers and failing to turn massive food surpluses into production via slavery. So I try to convince King Noob to take Metal Casting, and all he does about possibly getting dogpiled.


I would like to point out that despite suggesting this should be a no-fuss PBEM with no excess micro, Luddite has sent me the save and asked me to sandbox for him on 2-3 occasions. I suppose if I do it, he won't feel guilty about it.

Emails to Luddite in response to his most recent sandbox request, which are likely total because my Civ knowledge deteriorated rapidly in the last 8 months.

If there was an easier way to sandbox, I would love to. But at this point, it would take me an hour to make a sandbox for that, and it wouldn't even be accurate because I don't know how to put partial production and overflow into the sandbox easily. So these are my totally estimated thoughts:

Your fastest way to Mids is probably to take Math with Oracle for the chop bonus, which would give you 50 forests per chop into Mids, which is exactly two turns saved per Math chop. Right now, it is 13 turns until finished. If you build Oracle now, you can get it in 6 turns without slaving in stone city and 8 turns without slaving in marble city.

To get Mids fastest, slave Oracle in the marble city, take Math, and have chops ready to go in the capital for Math. That takes it down to 9 turns in the capital. If you are willing to grow the capital into unhappiness, you might be able to even get that down to 7 turns with slavery. But that is just a guess. You could get it a turn or two faster if you are willing to build a mine and then chop with your hill worker and work an undeveloped hill tile until then, but that just hurts the pride to do it.

If you are willing to chop the extra forests that won't give you the full amount because they are outside the BFC, you could probably chop four forests and not do Math.

Turn the governor off in the marble city.

[COLOR="Red"]I hope you aren't really working two citizens instead of the two oasis tiles in the stone city. When I opened the save you were. That makes my brain bleed.
[/COLOR]
If you are planning to get Math for the chops, you can probably afford to double pasture the horse and then move to chop.

If you hate to use Oracle on Math, you might be able to micro to straight research Math in 8 turns, and then put the chops in on the 9th turn. If research comes before production, I guess you could research Math straight and it would count on the chops, but I don't think it works that way.

I would suggest getting Mids in 7-8 if possible. Against humans, always best to be safe.

If Luddite is really working those citizens over the oasis tiles, I resign from this thread now.

After realizing my , I wrote:

Nevermind, I see you are growing in two turns, which at best if you mine that hill would get you 20 extra hammers by 7 turns from now.

So you could do:

40 hammers this turn.

T2 = 65

T3 = 100 (grew onto finished mine)

T4 = 135

T5 = 170

T6 = 205

T7 = 240

You need 335, so with two Math chops by T7, you could finish without slaving.

So if you either straight build Oracle in 6 at stone, or whip it in 6 in marble, and take Math, you can use the hill mine worker to exactly finish his chop on T7 and get the cow worker to also finish a Math chop that turn (have him help pasture horses or road first), and you will get 340/335 into Mids on T7 without slaving.

If you slave Oracle in five turns in the stone city and take Math and time your chops for T6, you might be able to slave Mids on T6. But that is a lot to give up to finish it one turn sooner.

If you don't want to do Math, you could chop with all three workers and if you have three forests that will yield the max hammers, on T7 you could have 240 + (3 * [13 * 2.5]) = 240 + 96 = 336/335 on T7. But I cannot remember how hammers degrade on chops outside the BFC.

[luddite]

Another chat:
I would like to point out that despite suggesting this should be a no-fuss PBEM with no excess micro, Luddite has sent me the save and asked me to sandbox for him on 2-3 occasions. I suppose if I do it, he won't feel guilty about it.

Just trying to make my ded lurkers feel important! =)

Anyway, I decided not to do anything fancy. I'm just going to build the pyramids and the oracle in the regular way, with 2 non-math chops to finish the pyramids. I think I'll be OK for both of them, but if someone beats me by 1 turn I'll be really annoyed. Nothing I can think of would speed up the pyramids at this point anyway. They'll be done in 5 turns.

I finally got Bronze Working! And it look where it popped up- right where I was planning to settle. Now I think it might be best to settle on the grassland 1W of the copper.


And the demos. I'm almost in the lead for power now! But someone else has gotten ahead in land area. I guess the player on the opposite side of the world from me has also claimed the two northern hill sites? That means both my immediate neighbors won't have any northern cities at all... poor them.

Oh, and AT converted to slavery this turn. He's really behind at this point.

[luddite]

So, if I settle on the copper, and work the appropriate tiles (mining the hill, cottaging the flatland) I'll end up with 9 regular production, and +5 food surplus. If I settle 1W of the copper, I'll have no food surplus, but 15 regular production. So that's 6 extra production per turn, which is exactly what slavery can produce, but without the unhappiness or needing to micro the whips. On the other hand, settling on the copper would give me an extra river-grassland cottage, and I could use the food surplus to run specialists if I needed extra research power. It would also hook up copper slightly faster.

arg, and now I just realized I actually could have gotten the pyramids 1 turn sooner if I'd microed better. Oh well.