[SPOILERS] Dazed and Whosit walk the line: Darius of Egypt

[dazedroyalty]

Hey! Just finished my second of two job interviews today and had time to look in the game. I think we should move our scouting warrior back to that cottage and pillage. It might piss Nicolae off but that's the way these games go in AI Diplo. I'm fine with moving Dinar SW. If no one else comments, I will play the turn before bed.

[Whosit]

I'll go take care of that in a few moments.

Edit: Nevermind, I see that you did. Did Sigloi see anything else to the east?

[Whosit]

Dazed, I'm looking at the save from this morning. Why did you move the Worker to the Silk Forest? I thought we were moving him 1 NE of the capital so that he could build the road for the Settler. Fortunately, no actually time has been lost, but I want to make sure that we're on the same page with Worker actions.

Or is it because, with the road, the 2nd city will be built on the same turn we revolt to Slavery? Does that really matter, though? I suppose it could mean the turns spent building the road are wasted.

Are you considering chopping that forest into the next Worker?

Demos Edit: Everyone got 15 points on the last turn, except AT, who got 10 more, so he got a tech and grew to size 3. Everyone has size 3 cities, except one at 4. That one is Commodore. Something interesting I gleaned from the approval rates screen, actually, is that I'm pretty sure Commodore is the only one with a Warrior guarding his capital at the moment. Interesting, not useful, as we're in no position to attack anyone just now, and they'd surely be able to build a new Warrior anyway. Still, we should see some scouting Warriors any time, I'd imagine. We should get vision on NC's graphs in the next couple of turns, too.

Soldier points didn't increase, so AT's new tech must be something without soldier points attached. Pretty sure he is the last place in GNP, so he was working on a 1st tier tech which took 3 turns. He could have generated 36 beakers plus some overflow. Fishing, at 38 beakers, seems the most likely tech to have taken. Really, it's probably the only possibility. I'm updating some stuff on the front page for AT making use of some more careful analysis.

Edit 2: I'm probably still wrong on some stuff, since not all my numbers quite add up, especially for AT's first tech....

[dazedroyalty]

I moved the worker there on purpose because it didn't lose us anything if we decide to road but gave us flexibility. Which we'll want based on this:



We have to decide if we're going to alter the city location to get horse in second ring. I have not finished the turn yet, since this merits conversation. We could move our proposed City #2 1N and make city #3 1 SE of the Crabs... Thoughts?

[Whosit]

I'm gonna open the save to take a look, just posting this to let you know I'm here and thinking. And is that a pre-placed Hamlet I see?

[Whosit]

Alright, so. Lots of words incoming.

I think one of my weakness at Civ IV (among the many that there are!) is I can get a little, hm, stuck in a rut or perfectionist about city placements. For example, I've had the idea of City #2 being on that hill for so long, changing seems absurd! Also, settling 1N "wastes" that riverside grassland tile. However, that's silly, and I'm sure we can quite happily grow dry grassland cottages up to Hamlets so we can get our lovely Financial bonus--it will just take some more time. And securing Horses is certainly important to us!

This also opens up another possibility. I opened up my Sandbox, updated some stuff. If we settle to grab Horses in Ring 2, that means a few things: We don't need to tech Fishing immediately. We can get Mysticism instead. Pigs will also be 1st ring, but we won't have Workers to help out right away, so that's not a big deal.

So I played. Worker built the road 1NE of city, then moved to 2S to the forest hill to chop. (Revolted to Slavery as soon as BW was finished, too). City #2 had nothing to work on but a Warrior. We'll have to discuss. Capital did: Settler > Worker (with chop) > Warrior. City Grew to 4 and Warrior completed in 1 turn. Mysticism also finished same time. 4th citizen worked plains forest for 2 hammers, started Stonehenge (9 turns). Now, the 1st worker finished chops same turn 2nd worker popped (well, 1st worker was active again, at any rate). Both move 1SW of their relative positions to each chop a forest. By the time chops finished and applied, we had two options: 2 pop whip capital (from 5 to 3--and not there are only 3 improved tiles currently) to get Henge EoT30! Or wait 2 more turns to finish.

Basically, if I've done this right, we are sitting at 10 turns to Stonehenge right now! Sure, that's no guarantee we'll get it, but it's definitely a lot safer than T35! We'll have to give up an immediate second settler, and the 3rd Worker, but if we're really angling for that Wonder, might be worth it? I know our previous plans gave us a 2nd Settler and almost a 3rd Worker by T30, but none of our new cities would have Worker attention, anyway, so fast settling could really be a drain before Henge.

Also, nestling a seaside city between the Corn and Rice out east looks lovely, even if neither are irrigated. Hopefully that Hamlet survives.

I dunno where we'll want to put City 3. That could change if we spot Copper. But it's worth noting that from this point on, new cities will probably need workers to connect via road, unless City 3 is settled to our north, along that river (which may be worth it, in my opinion, but we can discuss that later).

So, in summary: Change of plans may be good, and curious what you think about rushing for the Henge?

P.S.: Don't forget to rename Warrior 3 "Dinar."

[dazedroyalty]

OK, I like moving North to get the pigs in first ring and horses in second ring. We can put a city S or SE of the crabs later.

I prefer roading the forest over the grassland tile, as we discussed on chat. I think it's more productive long term.

I like using a worker to hook up the pigs instead of chopping a second worker. City 2 really needs that growth and if it has the pigs it will grow quick and can help build its own workers soon (since it won't have enough improved tiles)

I don't think we shoudl revolt to Slavery before Henge unless we're going to use a whip to get Henge or a Settler.

I'm leaning towards Henge before second settler at the moment to make sure we get it. Plus when I tried to go second settler before henge, I didn't have workers in place to Road to the site and we wasted a long time in transit because of inconvenient forests.

Since the road is the only decision we have to make this moment, all we have to decide is city 2 location. If you agree with moving 1N to get pigs in 1st ring and horses in 2nd, then play the save (i'll send you the half played save). If you disagree, we'll have to figure out a different plan.

[Whosit]

Okay, played the save, passed it on. Threw down a few signs for city locations just because. We're gonna have to figure out how to keep the naming scheme going considering the character limit for city names. But that's a minor issue.

Okay, so first: Build plan. I think our best bet is to not do Slavery immediately, and maybe not for a little while, either. We tech Mysticism next, get out a 3rd Worker and another Warrior, then start Stonehenge as that lines up with Size 4 and everything. I worked on some tile adjustments and whatnot, but the short of it is, with the addition of building a mine/chop on the grasshill SE of the city, we can get Stonehenge EoT32. So that's 2 turns slower for getting City 2's Pigs done faster. Probably worth it.

Speaking of City 2 (There You Go), I had it build a Worker in my playthroughs. The only other thing it could do was a Warrior, and we could always use more Workers. It would work the Hamlet until Pigs finished, and the Worker popped EoT29, which lines up with the completion of Pottery, so the city could work on a Granary straight away.

After Henge, we could do a Settler immediately, or whatever. The city would end up size 5. Could have one of the workers complete another mine for the city to work, or we could revolt to Slavery at some point to whip.

Tech path: After Pottery > Fishing (in anticipation of City 3) > Writing. I'm inclined for Math next to maximize the benefit of our forest chops. Could stop to pick up Iron Working so we can chop out those gems at City 4, though, but I would like to get CoL as soon as we can. We'll want to get the techs for Organized Religion, though, to make full use of the religion, so we'll have to dip back for those. But I figure we should get CoL through the Writing > Math > Currency path, because that will benefit our economy much more than Meditation and Priesthood will.

Those are my thoughts at the moment.

[dazedroyalty]

Yeah, we'll have to be creative with the names but I'd like to stick with it.

Also, city 2 should be a warrior first so it can grow. Plus we'll need a unit to cover city 3 when it's founded and the capital would be better served building other things as much as possible.

let's look closely and see if we'd build any granaries and how many cottages right after teching pottery. If it's just 1 or two cottages, we might be better off doing fishing first for the discount.

[Serdoa]

Just in my head, without having your exact numbers:

Settler is built T20 + T21 (no overflow?)
Worker has roaded silk T20+T21 (I guess from your discussion)
T22: Settler + Worker move to forest 1E,1NE of capital - capital starts worker (14fh / turn)
T23: Settler settles, worker moves to pig - capital 28/40 worker
T24: worker improves pig - capital finishes worker 42/40
T25: worker improves pig - worker 2 moves 1SE - capital starts worker 16/40
T26: worker improves pig - worker 2 mines - capital 30/40 worker
T27: worker moves to forest 1E,1NE of capital - worker 2 mines - capital 44/40 worker
T28: worker chops - worker 2 mines - worker 3 moves 1E on silk, chops - capital starts SH (10/80), +8food
T29: worker chops - worker 2 mines - worker 3 chops - capital 16/80 SH, +16 food (I assume it will grow to 4 here)
T30: worker finishes chop - worker 2 finishes mine - worker 3 finishes chop - capital 64/80 SH
T31: capital 73/80 SH
T32: capital 82/80 SH

I think that was your plan by now Whosit right? Maybe instead with worker 2

T25: move 1SE
T26: chop
T27: chop
T28: chop finishes
T29: move into capital and on road to silk, chop
T30: chop
T31: finish chop

Worker 1 finishes his chop normally on T30. Worker 3 finishes his chop on T31 (one turn later as he moves 1SW in the forest without road). So on T31 you'll have a total of 4 chops in SH (=52 hammers) + T28 (10 hammer w. overflow), T29 (6h), T30 (8h), T31 (8h). Total of 32h produced and with chops a total of 84 hammers. SH on T31, 4 workers, 2 cities, pigs improved as soon as possible. If you want you build a 5th worker in the 2nd city, though growing to 2 to work the cottage + pigs and producing a warrior might be better.