Singaboy and Sullla's team thread

[Singaboy]

The scout attacking my slinger is interesting. That only happens when the scout loses its barb camp. I thought I had killed the scout earlier on next to the camp. Maybe that scout then belonged to another camp.
Anyway, this is perfect as it will be my THIRD barb kill and result in the Eureka for BW. I was planning to research masonry after mining to plant the pyramids at Changsha as I will get the Eureka for the stone quarry. I could head for BW right after that since I will be getting the Eureka.

As mentioned before, I would like to get Petra up and running too sooner or later and that means one of us has to go for 3 different districts. This needs some thinking.

Of course, there are lots of things we want, the usual situation for the early game. I would love to get another builder (to help speed up pyramids) and settler out from Xian after its Holy Site and then settle one of the dots indicated on a previous wonder planning screen.

[Singaboy]

Turn 23:

The interface has been updated to 54 hammers for the builder. I need to be a little more careful with my micromanagement. However, next turn the builder will be done with quite some overflow and the city will grow as well. I would want to work the bananas rather than the grass hill. With the added luxury next turn, there is no harm to get the population to 5.

Let's see how this works out for the Holy Site. It seems I need to work the plain hill 1f2h for 2 turns before switching to the bananas to finish the Holy Site on T29. T29 is also the turn I will get the Inspiration for Early Empire. I will run State Workforce to T27, the switch back to Early Empire. If my calculations are correct (including the amenity bonus of 5% from T25 onward), I should get Early Empire exactly on T29, then sidetracking until T31, when State Workforce is put back in place to finish on T32 to enable Corvee. Lots of micromanagement here, hope I won't miss out a thing.



As for the actual turn, I defeated the hapless scout and gained both Eurekas for archery and BW. In fact, I could research Archery after Mining and Masonry in order to provide the Eureka for Rome. Since Rome is building 4 slingers after the current settler, it might be good to research archery after that for upgrading and the conquest of the city state.

The builder moved toward stone while the warrior moved north. My plan is to move the warrior onto the horse and north from there while the slinger could move east to prevent any barbarians from sneaking up to Xian or Roma from the north. I changed the citizen in Changsha to the work the stone for the time being.




As mentioned by Sulla, the two leading teams are very close in terms of score (46 vs 45). Emperor K's empire score is impressive indeed with a Lavra and a second city. However, in terms of civics and Technologies, nobody gets even close to us.

[Sullla]

Looking good right now. The one thing that we have to be most careful about in all of the micromanagement of Xian is not finishing State Workforce civic until we can adopt the pantheon and Corvee policy on the same turn. If we have to dump one turn's worth of culture into something like Mysticism to avoid finishing State Workforce "too fast", that should be OK.

Regarding upcoming planning... Yes, it would be nice to get the Archery boost from China if I'm unable to land it with one of my own slingers. The counterargument there is that if China finishes Archery research, that would lock out the ability to train slingers and upgrade them into archers. I think we stick with the current Mining into Masonry path for the moment so that we can get started on the Pyramids and then decide where to go with China's research in 10 turns or so depending on how things look. As far as city builds go, here's a tentative outline that's been running through my head. Xian is finishing a builder and then constructing the Holy Site afterwards. Following that, I'm thinking that we have it do another builder and use its charges for the Pyramids. Remember that the Pyramids grants a free builder upon completion, which means that it's almost "free" to build for China. As for Changsha, I'm not sure what it should be working on after the Stonehenge project. The Pyramids obviously, but we should be able to get almost all of that done via 5 builder charges. Perhaps a Holy Site district next to the mountain? We do want a Holy Site at Changsha at some point. Once China hits the first government, after Xian finishes its second builder for the Pyramids, I think we have China swap into Colonization policy and get out double settlers from the two cities, jumping from two to four cities quickly. We'll be doing the same thing with Rome and that could get us up to nine total cities (with the Industrial city state capture) by about Turn 50, which would be tough to match by the other teams, since they won't have Colonization unlocked as soon as us. Something along these lines for the future turns - interested to see what you're thinking.

And finally with regards to score points: early game techs and civics are meaningful to have, especially civics since Agoge and Ilkum and Colonization are so powerful. However, generally speaking it's the empire score that indicates the real strength of a civ. This is a bit deceptive right now because of those double score points from the Lavra and EmperorK/TheArchduke sacrificing builder labor to get their settlers out faster yadda yadda. I'll still feel better when we take the lead in the empire score category though.

[Sullla]

It's Christmas Eve so I'll make this a short turn report.



Settler finished in the capital and that was about it as far as my turn went. The two warriors are healing and getting ready to do more exploring/barb clearing in the future.



The timing on the settler was pretty good, especially for a capital like Roma that's a bit food poor. The settler finished with 22 food in the box, which dropped the city back to 22/24 food required to regrow back to size 3. Roma will get back to size 3 almost immediately without wasting any excess food. I thought about what tiles to work in the capital and settled on the above arrangement with the two 3/1 tiles. The basic idea was to run max food this turn, +4 food/turn surplus, in order to get the 10% growth bonus while the city was in positive amenities. It takes 34 food to grow from size 3 to size 4, and overflowing 2 food will turn that into 32 food required starting next turn. I'll have Roma pick up the 2/3 sheep tile next turn and continue running +4 food surplus, growing to size 4 (and triggering the Early Empire boost) in 8 more turns. That will line up nicely with reaching 25 faith and adopting a pantheon, thereby dropping out of the crummy God King policy. Meanwhile, the city will be turning out 3 turn slingers at 8 base production / 12 production after being boosted by Agoge, and I should have the four slingers I want in about 10 total turns. Then Roma goes back to another settler with Colonization + Urban Planning at 14 base / 21 modified production, followed by builders with Ilkum policy in place.

Really the only thing holding back this city is a lack of food. It needs a watermill in the worst way. That will be a major goal going forward, perhaps cash-rushing the watermill if we have enough money to spend. We'll see. Over to you Singaboy.

[Singaboy]

Turn 24:

The builder is done and Xian has grown to pop 4. With the correct citizen assignments, the Holy Site is done in 5 turns. With an overflow of more than 5 hammers, it only needs 53 hammers in 5 turns. With the current allocation, it makes 11 hammers and due to the positive amenities next turn (from spices), it will make around 11.5 hammers. That means, that I can shift one citizen to work the bananas instead of the hill from next turn onward and still get the Holy Site in 5 turns. Getting it as soon as possible is important to enable the right Pantheon belief and with it, get State Workforce the same turn done.

The tile selector has suddenly jumped from the wheat to the cow tile. This is much preferred as I would like Roma to get the wheat tile. Xian doesn't need a water mill and hence, doesn't really benefit from the wheat tile. Unfortunately, it is a third ring tile for Roma. I think it would need to get purchased by the city in order to prevent it being claimed by Xian.



As for unit movements, the builders move onto the tiles, they are supposed to improve. Of course, the builder at Changsha needs to wait an additional turn for mining to be done. The warrior moves north to find more barren land. Let's see whether there is a barbarian camp somewhere. I guess the warrior will move around the swamp on the western side to move two tiles north. The slinger moves east to have a better view of the tiles north of Xian. It will heal there for a few turns.



To note is the increased score of Emperor K. He has a real run in this game, accumulating a score of 30 compared to my 27 (city growth not reflected yet). He now has 2 techs and 2 civics. Lucky, he still makes only 2 GPP a turn. I am worried about our competitors for a religion to run projects and jumping in score. We will get the religion in 10 turns. I would feel a lot better if there wouldn't be a competition for the first GPP. This needs close monitoring.

As for technologies and the water mill, it might be a good idea to buy it. However, in order to get the wheel, we need to mine a resource. So far, there is none of them visible except the copper near Changsha. It might be a good idea for Rome to research BW after mining while China goes for mining -> masonry - > archery. Before finishing archery, it can always wait to produce 2 additional slingers. Let's see how the coordination would work out here. So far, the team work has been excellent. 

I have thought about the wonder cascade and it is clear, that Changsha can build a quick pyramid after Stonehenge. The next wonder in line would be Jerkel Barkal and we need IW for that. Hence, getting BW and the location for iron soon, is all the more important. If we can locate an iron and get it mined, it would unlock the wheel too.
Now I note that Jerkel Barkal provides 2 iron That's a really nice side effect. I doubt we have an issue with this resource then.

[Sullla]

Let me add a couple quick thoughts to go along with Singaboy's post:

The tile selector has suddenly jumped from the wheat to the cow tile. This is much preferred as I would like Roma to get the wheat tile. Xian doesn't need a water mill and hence, doesn't really benefit from the wheat tile. Unfortunately, it is a third ring tile for Roma. I think it would need to get purchased by the city in order to prevent it being claimed by Xian.

The tile picker goes for resources in the second ring first, choosing between them based on their foodhammer yield, and then it picks the rest of the non-resource tiles in the second ring according to the same criteria. Xian's tile picker is jumping back and forth between the cows and the wheat right now because they both have a foodhammer yield of 3. I agree that we'd prefer for Roma to have that wheat tile, but I also don't think we want to spend money purchasing a third ring tile. There are better places for us to spend our money right now. So that tile will probably be grabbed by Xian, and that's fine, we can harvest it for a population point at a later date. Also, kudos on the nice tile micro at Xian to get the Holy Site finished in the next 5 turns.

To note is the increased score of Emperor K. He has a real run in this game, accumulating a score of 30 compared to my 27 (city growth not reflected yet). He now has 2 techs and 2 civics. Lucky, he still makes only 2 GPP a turn. I am worried about our competitors for a religion to run projects and jumping in score. We will get the religion in 10 turns. I would feel a lot better if there wouldn't be a competition for the first GPP. This needs close monitoring.

EmperorK picked up a tech and a civic last turn. His 30 points are broken down like so:

Cities: 10 points (two cities)
Population: 4 points = 4 pop
Districts: 6 points (one Lavra)
Techs: 6 points (three techs)
Civics: 4 points (two civics)

The real thing boosting his score is the Lavra district counting for double the normal points. Cut that down to the normal 3 points, and we have 27 points for EmperorK against 26 points for Singaboy, a virtual dead heat for first place in the game. Now with that said, it's still an impressive opening for the EmperorK/Archduke team. I continue to believe that they will be the top competition in this game for our team.

As for technologies and the water mill, it might be a good idea to buy it. However, in order to get the wheel, we need to mine a resource. So far, there is none of them visible except the copper near Changsha. It might be a good idea for Rome to research BW after mining while China goes for mining -> masonry - > archery. Before finishing archery, it can always wait to produce 2 additional slingers. Let's see how the coordination would work out here. So far, the team work has been excellent.

Agreed, the current Rome tech path is Mining into Bronze Working, and then cross our fingers and pray for iron to be located somewhere nearby. If it's not, I'm planning to double expand with settlers out of the first two cities after unlocking Colonization, so I'll make sure to plant a city somewhere near the resource. I also think that I have a good chance of landing the Archery boost with a slinger kill at the barb camp off to my east. That would simplify things a bit in that regard. I concur that the teamwork has been very good thus far.

[Sullla]

Merry Christmas everyone! This will be another short turn report.



The settler moved further south and the northern warrior headed east towards the barbarian camp in that direction. The southern warrior healed another 10 HP. It was a quiet period for the Roman empire.



Roma grew back to size 3 and has 9/35 production in the box for its first slinger. This is where we can start playing around with numbers for some longterm planning purposes; I will be working the three tiles displayed here for +4 food/turn and 8 base production / 12 modified production with Agoge policy over the next eight turns. It costs 105 production for three slingers, and if you take 12 * 8 production = 96 production and then add the 9 production currently in the box, we end up with exactly 105 production, i.e. three slingers done over the next eight turns as the city grows to size 4. Then at size 4, the city will work the bananas, the sheep, and both 1/3 forested plains hill tiles for a total of 14 base / 21 modified production (with Urban Planning). That's enough for a slinger and a settler (with Colonization policy) in a total of seven turns of production: 7 * 21 = 147 and a slinger (35) + a settler (110) = 145 production.

Long story short, we're looking at three settlers finishing on Turns 28, 31, and 33 as the city grows to size 4. Then a fourth slinger finishing on Turn 35 and a settler coming out on Turn 40 if all goes according to plan. Obviously the cost of all those slingers means no early district for me, but the hope is that it will translate into a fast capture of the Industrial city state and that will let us get ships out and start exploring what's hiding in the fog off our island. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more landmasses out there between the starting continents waiting to be discovered, and we want to get a jump on that.

Not much of interest to report in score tracking. Pretty much everyone has three technologies discovered at this point; no new cities or new districts this turn.

[Singaboy]

Turn 25:

Time to connect the first amenity and get a slight increase (+5%) for all yields and 10% for growth. The result is very nice. I can change the tile assignment from the plain hill to the bananas and still get the Holy Site in 4 turns while growth is now in 6 turns. I rather use a tile with a yield of 4 instead of 3. When the city grows in 6 turns, I can then use the plain hill and get the builder after that Holy Site a turn earlier on T34.
Income rises by 2.6 gpt too. It will go up by another 2 gpt once sugar is connected.



The other builder has to wait a turn for mining to be done. It will then sit idle for a few more turns until T33, when it charges Stonehenge together with the other builder from Xian.
The warrior in the north finds only coastal tiles and in fact, on this side, there seems to be no camp at all. It might be on the other side of the river.



By the way, Sulla, you should attempt to maximize the overflow mechanics for the slingers into the settler. hence, it would be good to finish the last slinger just , say 1 hammer short and then use the next turn, to get 1.5 production into the settler even without Colonization.

[Singaboy]

Turn 26:

Even though Sulla has no posted his part of the turn, it's clear he has been continuing what was set out, move the settler into position to found a city next turn and approach the barbarian camp.

For my part, mining was finally done, research set to masonry and with that, the builder at Changsha improved the stones triggering the Eureka for masonry. State Workforce will be at its threshold next turn and getting swapped for Early Empire yet again. It should be done together with Changsha's city growth on T29.
Xian's builder moved a tile towards the sugar, which it will only reach next turn. On T29, Rome will get its amenity via a trade.

The northern warrior will move across the river to explore the other part in the north to check whether there is any camp there. There should be one camp at least.




My main worry remains Emperor K who now makes 3 GPP a turn and would finish the Great Prophet in a mere 12 turns. This is getting tight. It means without any additional GPP points from a project, he would get his religion on T38. Our final builder action is slated for T34, only 4 turns ahead of them. This is getting pretty close for comfort. I am certain, they would chose Defender of the Faith and it would make Russia all the more difficult to beat. Need to keep my fingers crossed, that we will stay ahead in the race for the first religion.

[Sullla]

A belated Turn 26 report after having post-Christmas dinner with more of the family:



Settler moves to the plains hill and will settle next turn (finally). This also provides a view of the Industrial city state which will hopefully be part of our territory in a couple dozen turns. I swapped off of Early Empire civic:



And on to State Workforce civic; I'll swap back to Early Empire on the turn after landing the boost to avoid wasting culture. Here's a view of the barb camp in the east that we've been hoping would not spawn any more units. I'm going to try and knock the barb spearman into the red with this warrior and then finish it with the slinger for the Archery tech boost.

The real news for the turn was the Great Person screen that Singaboy already posted about. EmperorK has either finished a shrine or taken Divine Spark pantheon to increase his Great Prophet points up to 3 per turn. Russia's ETA on a Great Prophet is now Turn 38, only four turns after us, although it's more like five turns because we'll get our Prophet in midturn and not after a turn roll. That doesn't leave us with a lot of leeway here, and this race has become closer than we would have liked. Blame Mikeforall of Khmer for chasing after Russia and forcing them to expend more resources themselves.

Here's the quick and dirty summary of the situation. No one is beating us to the first Great Prophet unless they start running a Holy Site district project. Khmer is probably out of the running, as Mikeforall only has one city still and he's already constructed a shrine in that city. He would need to run two Holy Site district projects to beat us and I don't think he has enough time to complete two different projects in the time remaining. The real danger is that Russia runs a Holy Site district project to secure their lead over Khmer, and that project would very likely cause them to finish a turn or two before us. Right now, the district project math looks like this:

Russia: Project cost = 41 production, Great Prophet points = 13 points
Khmer: Project cost = 47 production, Great Prophet points = 14 points

Is Khmer going to finish two district projects to grab 28 Great Prophet points? No. But Russia could finish one for 13 Great Prophet points and that would be enough to make up the 4 turn lead that we have right now. We would finish on either the same turn or Russia would be one turn ahead. Now keep in mind, both Russia and Khmer have built a very early district and also built or cash-rushed early shrines as well. Khmer in particular is destroying their growth curve here, building a non-unique district and then building a shrine as well. Khmer just finished a settler on this turn and dropped down to population 2, which means that Mikeforall is even slower than my own non-speedy pace here as Rome. If they invest all this time and effort only to get the THIRD religion choice, it's going to set them very far behind. But Russia, that's the civ that is the problem. Russia is just way too good at founding an early religion. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll try to build a quick Lavra at the second Russia city, which we would still likely be able to outrace.

Singaboy, I think we stay on our current development path for now. I'll sit down tomorrow and see if I can play with the micro to speed things up by a turn or two. We can always toss in a pre-pantheon and pre-Corvee builder charge from the current builder hanging out on the stone and see if that speeds things up by a bit. I'll take a look tomorrow and see what I can figure out. We're already pretty optimized though so it could be tough to find much in the way of extra speed.