[SPOILERS] Yuris125 tries to win a game of Civ5 before it fades away

[yuris125]

To make it official - Songhai

[yuris125]

After sleeping on it, I'm actually thinking I actively want Liberty. As I said when discussing my civ choice, I expect to care about religion in this game, to take advantage of Songhai UB. There are two consequences:

* Unlike science and culture, faith doesn't scale when you found more cities, you still need the same fixed amount of faith for a great prophet and for faith purchases
* I will want to go Piety for hammer savings on Shrines and TemplesMud Pyramid Mosques and extra faith from them

I think the best way to address both of the above is to go Liberty to Collective Rule, then full Piety. I have no idea if this is going to work out in a MP game, but I'm interested in trying

Now obviously the above route is what T-hawk used in his Sacred Sites games. Sacred Sites-based culture victory is almost certainly not going to work out in a MP game. The way to take advantage of the high amount of faith I'm planning to produce is to take beliefs to faith-buy units. As out Holy Warriors SG showed, it's possible to faith-buy a unit every 3-4 turns, even in late game, and that should be enough to close out the game if I get there

So the plan is: culture from plantations for pantheon if it's still available (I'm likely to be second to pantheon if Nicolae takes Ethiopia, his faith-producing building is earlier than mine), Ceremonial Burial and Mosques or Pagodas (depending on happiness situation) from founding religion, Religious Fervor from reformation, then use the great prophet from Piety finisher to enhance religion and take Holy Warriors as the second follower belief. Buy some units and go kill someone

[yuris125]

Do you guys know (paging Dr. T-hawk): on normal speed the earliest you can pop religion from a hut is T20. Does this scale with speed, and if so, what's the earliest turn on quick?

[yuris125]

Couple more random thoughts. Firstly, I now think it's better to get an enhancement great prophet from liberty finisher rather than piety finisher. Liberty doesn't have useless policies, and I can get there sooner. Happiness from Meritocracy would also allow me to deprioritise happiness beliefs and actually take Tithe rather than Ceremonial Burial, or feel better about taking Mosques over Pagodas. I don't need reformation belief until Industrial era, and unlike SP, I don't expect many other players to go Piety, so there should be little competition. So the plan now is: Liberty to Collective Rule, then Piety opener and Organised Religion, then finish Liberty, then Piety to Reformation, fitting in Mandate of Heaven if possible. The trade-off is that I will delay Rationalism significantly, but well, there has to be a trade-off

Secondly, because I don't want to build Shrines until Piety opener, I will need to put a very high priority on building Stonehenge. So high that I will likely go Calendar before even Mining. So research Pottery-Calendar, build order Scout-Scout-Monument-Stonehenge. Need to test how realistic this is, but even if I rely on a hut or a religious city-state to get my pantheon, I need early faith production to get to religion, and Stonehenge is the best accelerator for that (albeit expensive). I will test it tonight and see if it's viable, but that's the plan atm

[yuris125]

So, my prediction:

Ichabod - Persia / Japan / Iroquois
oledavy - Assyria / Russia / Ottomans
yuris125 - Songhai / Carthage / India
HitAnyKey - Inca / Germany / England
Nicolae Carpathia - Morocco / Celts / Ethiopia
AdrienIer - Polynesia / Rome / France

100% on this so far

[yuris125]

Do you guys know (paging Dr. T-hawk): on normal speed the earliest you can pop religion from a hut is T20. Does this scale with speed, and if so, what's the earliest turn on quick?

I figured out that I could test it by rolling a start with Shoshone and seeing when the option to pick faith becomes available to Pathfinders. The answer is... T20. It does not scale with speed

I also tried to find out when I could expect to build Stonehenge. It's not easy to estimate in Civ5, considering luck with ruins affects completion date significantly. But in my trial run I got it on T29, and I expect around T30 to be a realistic estimate. Assuming I luck into pantheon by then, either by getting faith from a hut or from a city state, I can expect religion 17 turns from then, before T50. Not amazing by speed run standards, but decent considering Desert Folklore is not in play

The big question was whether I could afford to go straight for Calendar, delaying Mining and Archery. The answer is that I'm pretty sure I can. Archer costs 140g on quick - chances are I will get that much by getting 3 city states and a single gold pop from ruins. I can research Archery after Calendar, buy an Archer, and send him with the initial Warrior to clear some camps and get Songhai's triple pillage gold to fund further development. The first Worker will have to be stolen of course, but that was obvious when I decided to go for an early Stonehenge. If I somehow get enough gold to buy one, I will, but I expect I will have to spend early money on Archers, especially if other players decide I'm an easy target after they see that I put a bunch of hammers into Stonehenge. However, with Civ5's city defences + my initial Warrior I think I can get buy through the first 20 turns without Archers

The one significant trade-off I found is that if I get culture from a ruin, there's a very high chance of getting to Collective Rule before I finish Stonehenge. So I will not be able to switch the capital to Settler production immediately. But I think it's ok, especially considering I expect to be low in military and don't know how many viable city spots there are nearby

So yeah. We'll see what kind of things happen to me in the early game, but my expectation is that Operation Stonehenge is a go

[chumchu]

To answer your rule question: the 2 hammer yield is preserved by settling on stone. It does not naturally occur in plains either.

[yuris125]

Thanks chumchu!

More random thoughts as we're eagerly waiting I've been having this debate in my head about whether this whole Liberty idea is a mistake. Tradition is the consensus best tree, and I wouldn't expect space for more than 7ish cities on a MP map, which is lower than what would allow Liberty to shine

The Stonehenge plan so far is the big reason why I'm still thinking Liberty is the way to go. I think Stonehenge is crucial for my plan, and I want to start it as early as possible. This basically means that I will have time to build 3 Scouts and a Monument in the capital before starting the 'henge. Wonder eta depends on luck with the huts (a funny thing to say when discussing game plan for a strategy game), but is firmly around T30. That matches T45 on normal speed. I don't feel good about starting my first Settler on T30 and not founding the second city until T40 or so. I feel much better about start the Settler for the **third** city on T30 and getting 50% bonus to its production after getting the first Settler for free

So far my post-Stonehenge plan is to get 2 Settlers (give or take depending on how many prime spots are available) out, then grow the capital while building Pyramids. Hope it won't be too late, will depend on how many others go for Liberty of course. But Pyramids will allow me to catch up on Workers after the Stonehenge build. I thought about whether I wanted to build it in the capital or go for it in the second city and keep building Settlers in the capital. Two reasons I decided I want it in the capital. First, I will be running low on military, and with capital on Settler/wonder duty, other cities will need to focus on units after the initial Monument. if I go for Pyramids, I would still have to build those units somewhere, and I think the income from city states and barb camps will dry up by then, so I will be able to emergency buy 1 or 2 Archers, but not more than that. So building Pyramids outside of capital would slow down the wonder, and still take the capital off Settlers, as it would have to build units. Second, both Stonehenge and Pyramids produce Great Engineer points, and together they can make me a GE in a reasonable timeframe to rush Hagia Sophia and get the enhancement prophet that way

Finally, I decided to go for Citizenship after Collective Rule before opening Piety. I don't need Piety until I start building Shrines, and that can wait until I get a few units out of those new cities. On the other hand, I don't see a way to get my third Worker before Pyramids (and I will definitely need it) if I don't take Citizenship. The first one I will steal, the second one I will rushbuy, but there's nowhere to build the third one, and I don't expect to have money for it. As an extra bonus, if I do get Pyramids, Pyramids + Citizenship allow roads to be built in 1 turn on quick speed, which can be very important if I end up defending with a limited number of units

So, unless I change my mind again before the game starts, the plan is:

Research: Pottery-Calendar-Archery, then order depends on the situation and on what I pop from huts, but I need to get AH, Mining, BW, Writing in some order, Construction if I have time, then towards Philosophy (to be finished when I'm ready to build Temples) and Theology (to be finished when I'm ready to rush Hagia Sophia)

Build: Scout-Scout-Monument-Scout-Stonehenge. 3 Scouts + Monument should line up well with the end of Calendar research. Buy an Archer as soon as available, then Worker as soon as I have money. Hopefully I will get another Archer from ruin upgrades, and that will have to do for early defence

Policies: Liberty to Collective Rule - Citizenship - Piety opener - Organised Religion - Meritocracy. Then depends on the situation. Getting the enhancement prophet from Hagia Sophia allows me to delay Liberty finisher, I don't need to go deeper into Piety before Industrial era, so will just look around and see what's most appropriate. If I'm close to Renaissance era by then, I may just try to beeline something there to start working on Rationalism as early as possible - with this plan I don't need the finisher neither in Liberty nor in Piety, so delaying Rationalism is no longer necessary

[yuris125]

I tolled a few test starts and played the first 50ish turns. Here are some baseline milestones (fairly meaningless as they heavily depend on what's in the fog and what I will get from huts)

Worker steal by T20
Collective Rule by T25 (the latest is T28 if I miss out on a culture ruin)
Stonehenge by T30
Settlers by T35 and T40
Pyramids by T55
Religion by T60

I'm convinced that if my non-capital cities are in good spots, I can get by with the starting Warrior and 2 Archers (1 ruin-upgraded Scout, 1 bought) until they start producing units

I found that Piety opener comes in late and I may want to build Shrines before then, assuming I have production to spare

I'm starting to lean towards the normal beliefs (Tithe and Pagodas) rather than CB and Mosques. I found that cash is quite tight without resource sales, and hopefully there are enough luxuries to get by without needing CB until I start getting Pagodas. Additional fpt from Mosques does not do nearly as much as additional happiness from Pagodas. I will take Mosques if I'm not first to religion and Pagodas are taken, but will definitely take a gold-providing founder belief - Initiation Rites if Tithe is taken

Finally, there's one thing suspected, but didn't get a chance before. Due to rounding, Songhai actually get more than 3x the gold from barb camps on quick speed. Normal speed gives 25g to other civs, 75g to Songhai. This is rounded down to 16g for other civs, but there's no rounding required for Songhai, they get the full 50. So that's nice Actually hope for barb camps in this game, I expect them to provide a significant part of my income until I can get Markets up (which likely will have to wait until after Theology)

[yuris125]

So, my prediction:

Ichabod - Persia / Japan / Iroquois
oledavy - Assyria / Russia / Ottomans
yuris125 - Songhai / Carthage / India
HitAnyKey - Inca / Germany / England
Nicolae Carpathia - Morocco / Celts / Ethiopia
AdrienIer - Polynesia / Rome / France

HAK went ahead and screwed me out of 100% guess rate! And for what.... Slinger is a weaker Archer in almost all situations, and terrace farm is rarely worth building - it's significantly better than regular improvements on tiles with 3 adjacent mountains, but how many such tiles are there... Fast movement in hills is good, don't get me wrong, but is it really better than 3-range Crossbows?? I think too many players think of England as a one-dimensional naval civ. Longbows work on land just fine!

Anyway, on to the turn...