Learning Capria FFH SG

[Brian Shanahan]

Bear planning:

How many bears are there outside Spilan? And how many do we have right now?

5 at least, forgot to count on the last turn.

Paris and Bologna will need bears, and the cities close to Evermore, ie Oxford, Coimbra, and maybe Wien. We will need one for Golden and one for a city on the island.

Paris has one settled, and I've two more bears heading to Salamanca and Bologna. The Salamanca bear can be diverted to Oxford without losing time on travel. I also have two bears in the South already captured, a C5 bear (better at combat for now, str 10 unit will be strong deep into the game) and a C2 Polar bear. There are probably more in the fog.

Do bear den in culture spawn bears? If we take Spilan and culture bomb it the same turn, and bear dens continue to spawn them, then we have a good source for culture and happiness for new cities, at the cost of a single unimproved tile.

Dunno on spawning, but I think maybe, Gobbo dens and Skelly bowers fo. If they do, keeping it is a good idea. Keep the pop at 2 bears constantly, as I think the dens spawn quicker with a bit of bear lovin' going on. Or at least Chef says so.

Oh, and Spilan has seen the leafy light of Orcdom.

[haphazard1]

Looks like good turns, Brian. Certainly good to see the end of the Sheaim, and peace with Amelanchier benefits us a lot more than it does him.

I will get the mod-mod installed tonight and take a look at the save, and propose a plan. It sounds like the main priorities are:

- Improve the economy
- Expand the empire (conquer Spilan, settle the south)
- Keep grabbing bears for use as dancing bears in our cities (which cities get priority? Borders with Amelanchier? New cities?)

What should our tech path be? We have a fair bit invested in Priesthood -- go ahead and finish it? Then what? Sailing is cheap and will boost our expansion, especially an island city or two for trade routes. Writing would allow libraries and possibly the Great Library, nice boosters for our research. Festivals would allow markets for a direct cash boost with modest hammer investment. Code of Laws would open some civic options -- are we happy with our current choices?

Workers -- do we have enough, and where should we be focusing their efforts? Obviously we will need worker support for all new cities to get them up to speed. If we need more, where to build them?

Do we have specific units that we are trying to develop with more XP, such as against incoming barbarians or for taking Spilan?

How long should I play? 10 turns? Until a specific event?

More detailed planning will require looking at the save first. All suggestions are welcome, especially thoughts on where to focus our energies. I will almost certainly have more questions once I have examined the save. Getting into a game after 175+ turns it is almost inevitable.

[haphazard1]

OK, mod-mod has been installed and save loads. I am not totally sure how to tell if the mod-mod is actually working? But the save does load.

Taking a quick look around...ouch on the economy. We have just over 200 gold in the treasury, but breakeven is about 15%. And we are only generating about 32 bpt at breakeven. Improving the economy must be a top priority.

Our costs are unit maintenance (40 gpt), city maintenance (35 gpt), civics (27 gpt), and inflation (23 gpt at 23% rate). We could really use a swap from God-King to City States, or to Aristocracy (less effective, but with other advantages). Counting distance maintenance (110% -> 20%), number of cities maintenance (-25%), civic cost (-4 gpt), and inflation (25%) on all the above a swap to City States would save us around 18 gold per turn, even giving back the God-King gold bonus in the capital. That would be worth about 15% on the slider or about 18 bpt. Obviously we would lose the God-King hammer bonus in the capital, plus 20% culture everywhere. And of course, we would have to research Cartography to actually be able to run City States....

Aristocracy would be at best a breakeven on gold, due to distance mainenance being less than half of total city maintenance and losing the God-King gold bonus in the capital. Plus losing the God-King hammers. The food/commerce effects from farms would have to be considered as well, of course. But Code of Laws does also unlock courthouses (expensive but money saving) and leads to Currency for more trade route income and other goodies.

Sailing to get an offshore city for better trade routes is also a possibility, but it would take some time to actually establish the city. But 8 cities would all gain +1 in TR income without any impact to civics. However, Sailing is as expensive as Code of Laws; Cartography is about 60% of that cost.

Festivals is even cheaper than Cartography, and would allow markets for cash (at the cost of some beakers) plus carnivals for expensive happiness (and something to do with the gorilla). This may be the quickest boost, although to really set our economy to rights we will need to do most or all of the above.

Unit costs...ouch. Short of disbanding (or sending on a suicide charge) some units I do not see a lot we can do here. And we actually need more units in some areas. We have 9 workers for 8 cities plus more to come, with a couple of new conquests needing a lot of worker labor. I think at least 3-4 more workers fairly quickly would be a worthwhile investment, but the added unit cost is painful.

Bears...we have 4 bears (3 normal, 1 polar) under our control. The bear den by Spilan currently has 7 bears on it. So we have plenty of bears to capture for our current city needs plus a bit, even if no more spawn after Spilan is taken.

There are quite a few changes that could be made to builds and tiles worked -- some of the current choices seem rather sub-optimal. A harbor in Wien when it has no other buildings? A warrior in the capital which is producing 78 hammers this turn? (Much overflow will be lost.) Lots of cottages could be worked rather than mines to improve our commerce and grow them for the future, although that will depend on the city and what it is building.

More happiness would help a lot, allowing our core cities to grow further and work more improved tiles. The gold site is an obvious possibility, both for happiness and commerce from the gold to pay for itself. We certainly have enough troops available to garrison it safely, even without having Sailing to reach it by ship. Ivory is available in the south, as are sugar, dyes, gems, and the Fruit of Yggdrasil. The island in the northeast could provide whales for happiness, as well as being a trade route center. Of course, new cities also mean even higher maintenance costs....

Do we want to finish Priesthood? We have left almost exactly the total cost of either Sailing or Code of Laws; quite a bit more than Festivals or Cartography. Is it worth burning our available cash to get Vicars and Stonewardens, or should we change to an economy tech and come back for Priests a bit later?

We could get some cash from conquering Spilan, and if it costs us a few units...well, we could stand to lower our maintenace costs a bit. Just have to avoid losing anyone useful. But the city itself is worse than lousy -- deer and nothing, really. Maybe just raze the piece of junk, and keep farming bears? Ultigar further west is much more attractive with corn, silk, incense, sheep, and plenty of river side tiles. Plus death mana (I assume this was the Broken Sepulcher?) although we don't have to hook it up if we don't want diplo impact from it. The site marked as "My lovely horse" 2S loses the corn and death mana in exchange for horses and cotton, although obviously this would require razing and a settler to replace.

How much military do we need to keep on the border with Amelanchier? He doesn't appear to have much more than a handful or archers, a few hunters, and a few warriors. What happened to Gilden?

Jonas Endain is in Conquest and Military State, with almost as much pop as we do and quite a lot more land. Plus higher GNP, at least right now. He is hopefully fully occupied fighting one or both of the two AIs we have not met, but a watchful eye will need to be kept on the Clan.

What does the team think? Where should we put our focus? I think this needs to be an economy-focused turnset, probably going for Festivals instead of Priesthood and shifting a lot of builds and tile usage toward commerce. Several more workers plus maybe a settler or two, although I am not sure where to settler first. Maybe wait a bit for Sailing (or go for Sailing immediately?) then settle Gold and the island? I can see a lot of things to do, but especially as the new guy (or is that "the noob guy" ) I don't want to push for a direction the team does not want to go.

[Thoth]

Law 2 isn't that bad, as it gives the Hosts of the Einherjar (yes I know they're temporary but they're still nifty throwaways if you go with Order for a religion),

Law II is solid. Angels are 50% resistant to Death damage, are immune to Holy and Poison damage and surviving Hosts stick around for an extra turn if they win a fight (as do Pitbeasts). As they are not alive, they cannot be Blessed. (but are immune to fear)

Spirit I don't use too much either. Loyalty is situationally useful (more in MP than SP) and Valour comes way too late as it's a tier three spell. Courage is nice when I do take Spirit 1,

Spirit I (courage) is a very, very handy spell. Immunity to fear is essential if you're going up against Spectres or someone with the Timor Mask and the +10% stack healing helps a lot (especially when added to a Disciple or Priest where it stacks with the Medic Promos)

Earth spells are also handy but don't truly get useful until Earth 3 with the elemental. 1 and 2 are handy for defensive purposes, 1 gives a free palisade (and will stack on palisades) and 2 gives +2 defensive bonus to the caster.

Stoneskin also gives 50% resistance to *all* non-physical attacks and 3 first strikes. Very, very, very handy to have on your Mages (but probably not worth spending more than one promo to get).

Wall of Stone is a bit iffy, but can be situationally useful.

[kjn]

OK, mod-mod has been installed and save loads. I am not totally sure how to tell if the mod-mod is actually working? But the save does load.

Mouse-over the flag in the top-left corner will show a lot of data about the game.

Taking a quick look around...ouch on the economy. We have just over 200 gold in the treasury, but breakeven is about 15%. And we are only generating about 32 bpt at breakeven. Improving the economy must be a top priority.[/quote]

Ow! Will have to take a look at the save later today, but fixing the economy will be your main task for the next ten turns, methinks. Seems like going for Priesthood before economy techs was some major

[kjn]

Ok, sitting with the save right now.

And Haphazard is correct - things are a mess

Tech

Going for Priesthood before Sailing, Writing, Cartography, or CoL was a major . It's expensive (we could be well on the way to Trade by now), it doesn't help our economy, and it's an excellent bulb target.

Since we have OB with Auric, Sailing and a city on our north shore might very well open up trade with him. That'd give an excellent shot in the arm for our economy.

City management and builds

Bologna shouldn't build warriors, as Haph noted. A settler would be good, a worker would be good. The escorts needed for a settler can be built in other cities. The city should also probably work cottages instead of the commerce-less mines, I think, given our economy. It will finish a settler in decent time anyway.

Paris misses out on working a fully mature Town (shared with Bologna). Given our low slider, Bologna should probably work their shared tiles. A granary is a decent build. Go max food otherwise (ie work grass cottages over hill or plains cottages) so it can grow to 10.

Oxford should take time to grow cottages. The farms are also superior to the mines when building workers since they give a commerce.

Salamanca should work cottages if it only dumps hammers into a Pagan Temple. I'd probably build a worker here.

Why does Coimbra need a granary? Hire a merchant and a priest instead of working the mines. Even a monument or a pagan temple would be better right now than the granary (either another priest or help in the culture battle with Evermore).

Prague should go max growth and commerce. Perhaps also hire a merchant instead of working the silk or a mine.

Krakow will need a lot more workers than it has right now. I'd prefer a ToK over the EC as the first build there, though - raw gold is more valuable than raw beakers, and the ToK has more specialist slots.

Why a harbor in Wien? It won't help the city for ages. Get a ToK or an EC first. Also, the city should pick up Oxford's southern farm so it can grow at a decent clip and get some commerce. Make sure Brian's chop goes into a decent build in Wien - either a temple or a ToK (assign the tile to Wien instead of Oxford, Wien doesn't need to work the tile, simply assign its citizen to the FGH and then back to the farm). And why isn't the rice already well on its way to be improved - it's the most valuable tile in Wien?!

Workers

The most important tile to improve is the rice. It will give a good boost to Wien, and give another 3 commerce in Paris.

There are 4 workers around Prague. Send one of them to build cottages and chop around Coimbra, another to Wien, and a third to Krakow. Prague has plenty of improved tiles to work already.

We should also shift a worker or two north (eg Eric and one being built in Salamanca) north to support settling White.

Bears and culture

I view bears as primarily a culture bonus. Thus, I think the following cities should get them:

Bologna, Oxford, Coimbra, and Wien. Further bears should be saved for new cities (so they won't have to build monuments), especially Golden and a new city on the northeast island or bordering Auric.

The army

Oxford should finish its worker and then go on archer duty. I'd like to shift some of our CR axes towards the north, so they can take Spilan.

We should organise some nodal forces. Coimbra and Paris gets mainly axes (our south and north reserve) while we station our horsemen in Oxford, where they can reinforce the entire empire quickly.

Slowbuild archers, so every city has a decent garrison. We should also build thanes for missionary and culture duty, but other than that I see no real reason for additional units.

Our southern hunters should be withdrawn, and their hawk assigned to the northern ones. I think those two should push westwards, scout out Jonas Endain's lands, and try to make contact with the two remaining AIs.

Civics

I think we should switch to either Arete or Military State. Given the size of our army, Military State will actually save money. Arete would make our mines more efficient, and give quicker GPs. Heck, I can even see us going for Arete+Pacifism for a while, at least until its time to get some galleys from White and Salamanca.

Putting it all together

I think our main target here is to grow our economy as fast as possible. Pacifism+Arete for now to get our next GP out quickly. Build ToKs and ECs for more gold, more beakers, and more specialist slots.

Our main goal should, IMO, be Trade, giving us one more trade route in every city and tech trades. Sailing discounts it and enables overseas trade routes. Writing is required, and gives us libraries. However, I think we should go Code of Laws first.

Aristocracy won't cut costs as much as Cartography, but it will give us 24 more commerce from the farms we have - maybe even more. It also won't hinder our culture generation.

So I think the following:

Revolt to Pacifism+Arete. Tech towards Code of Laws, so we get it in 10. Then we can go max on Sailing, followed by Writing and Trade.

Get another settler from Bologna, to found White. Chop out a galley there, and send it to colonise the island (bear+settler+worker+garrison) in the first wave.

I managed to get us to 30-35% breakeven by working commerce-rich tiles and hiring merchants and priests. That should be enough for the push towards CoL and Trade.

[haphazard1]

Lots of good thoughts, kjn.

Trade will give us another trade route in each city, but so would Currency as an intermediate target. And I think we should fit in Festivals as well -- it is very cheap and markets would give us a nice boost and a good target for some of our hammers.

I had not considered trade routes to the Ilians, but that would give us a signficant benefit as well and can be done sooner than an island city. Once we get extra trade routes, then the island city will also contibute higher base value TRs.

I was considering shifting some of the existing warriors to use against Spilan (first wave softeners) and as escort/garrison for settlers claiming the south. There do not seem to be significant threats in that region so we can use some of our semi-obsolete troops in the region.

I think we need at least one hunter in the south to guard against spiders. Northen hunters for bear-capture duty. Maybe we need an extra hunter or two to head for Clan lands and try to find more AIs? We can handle a couple extra units and I think more info about the world is worth the effort.

Strongly agree on tile usage and builds -- the Sheaim are gone, Amelanchier seems contained for now, and we can handle the occasional barbs. We need to spend some time consolidating our gains and developing cottages, growing our cities to the (soon to increase) happy cap, and finishing some infra builds.

Shall I wait for Brian to comment? I have some time to play this afternoon, but would like to get his feedback first. But I am not sure what his usual time zone for commenting might be.

[kjn]

Trade will give us another trade route in each city, but so would Currency as an intermediate target. And I think we should fit in Festivals as well -- it is very cheap and markets would give us a nice boost and a good target for some of our hammers.

Trade is half the cost of Currency, and we can double-discount Trade too (Sailing and HBR). Currency is also a better bulbing target (if we get a GM soonish). And Trade will open up tech trading, allowing us to backfill things like Cartography or Festivals.

So I'd prefer to tech towards Trade before Currency. If we get a GM soon, then we definitely should bulb Currency. (If we get a great prophet, normally bulbing Priesthood would be great, but we have already researched more than half of it. I'd probably prefer saving the prophet for a shrine then.)

Code of Laws costs more than Cartography or Festivals, but Code of Laws leads to worthwhile other techs (Order and Currency), will increase our economy, cut costs (with Aristocracy and Courthouses), and we can probably pick up Cartography and Festivals via tech trades.

I had not considered trade routes to the Ilians, but that would give us a signficant benefit as well and can be done sooner than an island city. Once we get extra trade routes, then the island city will also contibute higher base value TRs.

I think Auric only has three cities, so the benefit would be far less than getting an island city. Still worthwhile, especially since we need White to settle the island.

I was considering shifting some of the existing warriors to use against Spilan (first wave softeners) and as escort/garrison for settlers claiming the south. There do not seem to be significant threats in that region so we can use some of our semi-obsolete troops in the region.

Agreed. Though I think we should limit ourselves to settling White and maybe take Spilan in the near term. All the rest of our cities in the south need lots and lots of development.

Fix the economy first, then worry about expansion in the south. Golden, White, and an island city will help directly in fixing our economy, pushing further south won't, at least not until we reach Yggdrasil.

I think we need at least one hunter in the south to guard against spiders. Northen hunters for bear-capture duty. Maybe we need an extra hunter or two to head for Clan lands and try to find more AIs? We can handle a couple extra units and I think more info about the world is worth the effort.

Spiders don't enter borders, though keeping a hunter there (maybe the withered one) can be a good idea. Our other hunter in the south can go on bear capture - it's not like we need to cut them down quickly, and the group in the north can push west.

The withered scout should send his hawk north too - it hurt my micro soul to see Brian explore a dungeon with a hawked hunter - that's putting 20 more hammers and a valuable unit on the line.

Strongly agree on tile usage and builds -- the Sheaim are gone, Amelanchier seems contained for now, and we can handle the occasional barbs. We need to spend some time consolidating our gains and developing cottages, growing our cities to the (soon to increase) happy cap, and finishing some infra builds.

If you go for CoL, then it might be an idea to get some farms around Krakow and Wien. Quick growth for ten turns, and then plenty of aristofarms.

Shall I wait for Brian to comment? I have some time to play this afternoon, but would like to get his feedback first. But I am not sure what his usual time zone for commenting might be.

Brian is in Ireland (ie GMT), so it's midafternoon for him right now. He's usually around at this time, at least during the weekdays. *checks* He's visiting the forum right now.

[Brian Shanahan]

Yeah my bad on the economy. I was too busy trying to capture bears and the south, and played too qquickly too.

Coimbra got the granary as it had nothing else worthwhile to build. It was either that or units, and units cost too much atm. Wien should have gotten the temple as soon as it converted, but I tend not to change builds except for in times of need (e.g an attack) so I never thought of it.

As regards prioritising the cash, I should have worked on that. I really phoned in the economic side of the game last night.

[kjn]

Jonas Endain is in Conquest and Military State, with almost as much pop as we do and quite a lot more land. Plus higher GNP, at least right now. He is hopefully fully occupied fighting one or both of the two AIs we have not met, but a watchful eye will need to be kept on the Clan.

I checked the graphs, and just like us, a lot of his GNP is culture.

Jonas being in Conquest is a good thing, IMO. Conquest is the worst trap civic in the game if you're building units, since it stops growth in developing cities.

As regards prioritising the cash, I should have worked on that. I really phoned in the economic side of the game last night.

No problem. At least Haphazard will get a crash course in improving the FFH economy!