[SPOILERS] Rusten prepares to face the music

[Rusten]

Approaching T40 (currently T38) and as promised it's time to look at the feasibility of building the Oracle. With 1T left on the wheel I have all the "must-have" techs, so at this point it's about the opportunity cost. I need to do some thinking so the main post will be for later today, but what I can say right away is that the opportunity cost of trying for it is very low with imperialistic (extra hammers available) and polytheism already researched for a religion. It's only 5-6 turns of teching. Failgold would not be the end of the world either.

Next techs are fishing, hunting, pottery, AH, writing. The last 3 I am definitely willing to delay for priesthood. But ideally it needs to be planned out to the point that I can grab aesthetics with it, which means that I need writing before completion. Taking MC is ok, but not what I want. I may have to tech writing before AH for instance. Anyway, timeline and further analysis later.

[Elum]

This is great analysis, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. What is the motivation for Aesthetics, a wonder in particular or the tech path it furthers?

[Rusten]

Useful civ interaction of the day:

Whipping a warrior for 1 pop at 10/15 hammers (while producing 1 hammer per turn) when 1T away from hunting with copper already hooked up results in a spearman and 6 overflow hammers. The ordering works out -- no hammers lost.

Useful in my current setup.

x-post.

[Rusten]

This is great analysis, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. What is the motivation for Aesthetics, a wonder in particular or the tech path it furthers?

Both!

I touched on this in the pre-game. Aesthetics offers Statue of Zeus which is an amazing wonder in this mod (+3xp to military units that doesn't expire). And it's made even stronger with IMP+CHM for some uber promotions later on in the game.

Furthermore it would enable me to unlock the Heroic Epic peacefully if I have to (CHM needs only 8XP to unlock it) which gives me a huge advantage in military build-ups. And going Literature with Poly already complete is not a big detour. There's also marble available for a run at the GL and getting NE up early. Having HE up before a medieval war is very relevant, and the units could be level 4 to boot.

In an ideal world Leitmotif builds the Oracle and GL+NE while Kaputt builds the SoZ+HE.

[Rusten]

Test run complete: T62 Oracle.

This was made with current expansion plan in mind which I may decide to tweak because T62 is promising. It was also a pretty sloppy run. I whipped a worker and axe into it and chopped 4 forests.

1) I have overflow hammers (26) so I it can be completed at least 2 turns sooner.
2) I'm missing writing here, but this can easily be fixed by binary research and stopping at 5 cities and getting a worker instead of a settler for city 6 (would have time to make cottages for commerce in addition to chopping).

If I get the 4th worker I can see a T60 Oracle without it being too much of an investment. Low opportunity cost with big gain. I'd be fairly confident in a T60 date in a smaller game, but with 25 players of varying skill levels it's far from a certainty. I consider it a worthwhile investment though. Based on GNP counts from Demographics and city sizes from score I think I am ahead of most people beaker-wise as I emphasized growth and have a river. Besides, investing into meditation/poly and priesthood is a tough pill to swallow for most people. Maybe my main competitor will be the Buddhism founder (Dark Savant IIRC).

Now that I know what to aim for and what the bottleneck is I look forward to the 2nd test run. T60 is the first goal.

New general plan is settling pig+silver next as I have time for hunting before it's settled (completed same turn). It's also closer to my workers. I can road the silver the turn before it's settled --> improve pigs --> improve silver --> cottage river and chop Oracle. This would mean delaying the corn+gems city (which now plans gems in 2nd ring) until ~T57-60 somewhere (the other 5 before T50).

[Elum]

Sounds solid . You have some great synergies going with this game. It is a funny implication that the discounted settlers from IMP allow you to build more wonders, more-so than IND would have!

Has the extra happy from CHM come into play yet?

[Rusten]

Yes, I'm very happy with my civ/leader combo. Could be a fun game ahead.

I think one of the main mistakes people do with the IMP trait is only focusing on the settling of cities. Both in practice and when evaluating trait strength. Just because you can settle 3 extra citiies before T60 doesn't mean that you always should. Better to think of it as ~30-33*city count (minus capital) extra hammers than extra settlers. In this case I'm trading in the extra hammers for wonder progression, which I'd otherwise struggle to fit in. But it still holds an advantage over IND in that the cities are settled sooner.

Civ 4's early game generally comes down to identifying the bottlenecks and planning accordingly. Emphasize whatever is missing, be that commerce or production.

CHM will not come into play until granaries are up and cities are pushing the health/happy caps. Although for this map its influence is limited as there are so many happy resources available already. I can still get mileage out of the xp reduction though. And of course the discounted madrassa will be available soon.

[Rusten]

I don't know why this kind of information is available, but it's in the game so I just need to accept it. I wonder for how long this war has been going on, I don't check this screen every turn. Could be nothing like killing a scout, or it could be something more serious.

[Rusten]

T57 (maybe T56) Oracle Aesthethics is possible if I skip hunting and delay settling those cities.
But at that point the opportunity cost is a little steep for me. I think I will aim for T61 or T62 and be OK with possibly not building it in time. The wonder is optional for my plans.

T57 would still not be a guarantee. I mentioned earlier in this thread how early the Oracle went in PB27 (the previous big game). It was built with 1 city IIRC. I can't trust everyone here not to do something similarly silly, so better to focus on development alongside wonder building.

[Rusten]

Alternatively I can just take MC T56. Not having to squeeze in writing has some big benefits.
Techs would then be hunting-fishing-priesthood-pottery. It gains 5-6 very important turns in construction while also not hampering development/expansion much.

Getting Aesthetics very early is not that crucial, the tech itself doesn't do much, and a wonder date of T56 is a huge improvement on T62. Kaputt could benefit from a forge for both the happiness and the production, it's a city which will grow huge early on. 20 base hammers if working all mines and ivory.

A lot to think about. But I'm at least set on hunting-fishing to start with so I can delay my decision for a few turns.

That's what I had written up *before * I logged on this turn, but the bottleneck might have changed. Spot anything out of the ordinary in this picture?

Working those mines every turn paying off big time. This changes things – Aesthetics Oracle is back on the table.