Micromanagement Sims/Planning

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Is there any concern that building The Great Lighthouse will cause teams to close borders with us?

[SleepingMoogle]

Is there any concern that building The Great Lighthouse will cause teams to close borders with us?

Why? It should be pretty obvious to every team that it is not that strong a Wonder on this map. If anything our score and demographics should be scary and that hasn't stopped most teams from signing OB with us.

[Sullla]

Azoth, all of the numbers in the sandbox are based upon us entering a Golden Age on Turn 120; we certainly won't be getting Music at eot 121 without that. I don't favor sitting around and waiting any longer due to the possibility of missing out on the free Great Person, and because every turn we wait to use the free Golden Age swap into Bureaucracy is a turn we're wasting the potential of our capital. Besides, it's not like saving the Great Artist from Music for use later is a bad play or anything; that's actually very standard procedure.

Ubercannon, as I said, having Great People wait around to trigger a targeted Golden Age is not a wasteful play. If anything, early Golden Ages tend to be suboptimal in Civ4 because of the lack of improved tiles, and fewer overall tiles being worked. I don't recommend triggering a Golden Age before the medieval era unless there's dire need, and the renaissance is even better in most situations. We're looking at one here because it allows us to save a free turn of Anarchy (in making the swap to Bureaucracy) and it also lets us create two Scientists at minimal effort (with use of Caste/Pacifism). Otherwise we would not be looking to trigger a Golden Age at this time.

If we don't feel like we need to lightbulb Education, then of course we'll save the second Great Scientist. However, I always feel like it's better to be safe than sorry in this regard. Winning the Liberalism race is worth a very pricey free tech, and we're specifically looking to take Nationalism tech to get the drafting train rolling, then use that to roll over our weaker neighbor(s). Liberalism typically turns into Nationalism, which then turns into Taj Mahal, which is enormously valuable in granting a free Golden Age that doesn't count against the Great Person counter. If we would lose Taj to CivFr, that's a swing of 20 turns of Golden Age: +12t for them and -8t for us. That is worth much, much more than a single Great Person. Basically, it's worth the cost of a lightbulb if it clears the way for the Liberalism and Taj prizes. We should have Alphabet tech and contact with CivFr before we have to make these decisions, but I think there's a good chance we'll want to lightbulb something along the Liberalism path.

sooooo, Seven Tribes is indeed over-improved at the moment, but I can't write the updated micro until we know where the next city is going. Consider everything after the plains farm to chain irrigation to the wheat as a very provisional move. We've got our scouts out, and either they'll find something of note, or they won't and we'll just settle in the cows/horses/wheat region.

Yes, the jungle tile next to Cutting Edge will be cleared and farmed to chain irrigation to the rice. That's correct.

The Covenant definitely wants to be building a settler or worker, this is where I disagree. It's already outgrown the supply of improved tiles by T118; there are about eight workers up there hacking down the jungle, and the cities are still growing faster than they can be improved. We want something out of The Covenant, I just don't know what yet. We've got two ways to play this here:

Worker: swap worker T118, whip T119, overflow into library
Settler: swap settler T118, build T119, whip start of turn T120 BEFORE civics swap, overflow into library

At the time of writing this, I don't know if we're going to find a really killer location in the south that we want to settle. Or maybe we'll want to get that rice spot in the northwest jungle, that's another possibility. We can go for worker or settler, either works, but we definitely want to whip something and make use of foodhammers. The Covenant makes 1 production per turn at +6 food. It can't build jack without Slavery. And we need to whip before the Golden Age starts, because we're giving up Slavery civic for Caste System all throughout the GA. That's important to keep in mind, and it's gone into the planning.

In turn, Focal Point is a poor location to build settlers/workers. It's one of our very few high-production cities, and is best used for military or wonder building. One of the lessons of high level Civ4 play is that you rarely build settlers or workers, you instead spending your time working high food tiles and then whip the foodhammer builds, so that cities don't waste time at zero growth. I mean, sure, we could slow build a settler over 5t at Focal Point, but we could instead triple-whip The Covenant, since it's out of improved tiles to work anyway, and then have it grow back over the next 5t to the same size as before. It's a more efficient way to produce workers and settlers. I don't think we've slow built a settler since the Focal Point one around Turn 50. They've all been triple whipped.

We can built catapults if we want. I've just written in the build order at Focal Point and Brick By Brick as "military". These cities will have their barracks already, they will want forges and stables once we have the requisite techs, but otherwise the plan is all military all the time. The exact units to build, I figure we will work out when we get there.

And on the last point, I agree with SleepingMoogle. If running out to the Demographics and score lead in every category isn't enough to get teams to close borders with us, then I doubt that building the Great Lighthouse on a nearly all land map will change their minds.

[kjn]

Another thing to remember is that the Liberalism race is already on. I'm behind in the C&D, but Apolyton bulbed Philosophy not long ago, and just researched Civil Service.

Ie, we can't twiddle around here - Apolyton is currently up two techs in the race compared to us. A golden age with our large empire and a bulb of Education with our large population is probably just what we need to edge them out here, as well as abusing our large and well-developed capital once we revolt to Bureaucracy.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Another thing to remember is that the Liberalism race is already on. I'm behind in the C&D, but Apolyton bulbed Philosophy not long ago, and just researched Civil Service.

Ie, we can't twiddle around here - Apolyton is currently up two techs in the race compared to us. A golden age with our large empire and a bulb of Education with our large population is probably just what we need to edge them out here, as well as abusing our large and well-developed capital once we revolt to Bureaucracy.

That and every other advantage we can eek out, like abuse of wonder failgold. I would be surprised if CivFr did not get significant failgold in more than one city off the ToA build. Else, why bother?

Re: TGL and open borders: I don't disagree, but I wanted to check. My default position on TGL is to want to close borders with whoever gets it unless I can get some gpt from the open borders deal, or some other reason/game situation makes the trade imbalance worthwhile. Other teams could feel the same way, generally speaking. Honestly, I'm surprised teams haven't made waves more than they have about opening borders with us in the first place, for the reasons you mention about food/GNP/production advantages we have.

[kjn]

Right now we have OB treaties with the Germans, WPC, CFC, the Spanish, and Apolyton. WPC will be seriously unwilling to close borders, and CFC has it as part of our NAP agreement. So that's at least 22 cities we can trade with already.

The thing with denying OB is also that lots of teams must be into it - think of it as a dogpile light. But every team that closes borders with us takes a small economic and a serious diplo hit, so they need to talk about it and do it together. By growing several cities to size 11 or larger we also increase the cost for the teams closing borders with us. If we can give several +3 trade routes (apart from our capital) while the other teams only can provide one or two it makes a trade boycott even more unlikely.

[sooooo]

In turn, Focal Point is a poor location to build settlers/workers. It's one of our very few high-production cities, and is best used for military or wonder building. One of the lessons of high level Civ4 play is that you rarely build settlers or workers, you instead spending your time working high food tiles and then whip the foodhammer builds, so that cities don't waste time at zero growth. I mean, sure, we could slow build a settler over 5t at Focal Point, but we could instead triple-whip The Covenant, since it's out of improved tiles to work anyway, and then have it grow back over the next 5t to the same size as before. It's a more efficient way to produce workers and settlers. I don't think we've slow built a settler since the Focal Point one around Turn 50. They've all been triple whipped.

Well I agree with some of that. I understand that whipping settlers and workers avoids the penalty of not growing while building them. However, if you have a city that isn't growing anyway (Focal Point), I don't see the harm in building a settler there. There's no downside in slow building in that case. You could make the argument that it should be building military instead. Maybe. But also you could argue that The Covenant should be whipping away those extra population into a library too, because it's an extremely high commerce city. I'm not saying you're wrong to prioritise these quantities, but I'm just questioning the logic that building settlers and/or workers in cities that don't grow is incorrect. I always thought that in terms of pure production, mines are more efficient than whips.

[Fintourist]

Well I agree with some of that. I understand that whipping settlers and workers avoids the penalty of not growing while building them. However, if you have a city that isn't growing anyway (Focal Point), I don't see the harm in building a settler there. There's no downside in slow building in that case. You could make the argument that it should be building military instead. Maybe. But also you could argue that The Covenant should be whipping away those extra population into a library too, because it's an extremely high commerce city. I'm not saying you're wrong to prioritise these quantities, but I'm just questioning the logic that building settlers and/or workers in cities that don't grow is incorrect. I always thought that in terms of pure production, mines are more efficient than whips.

I guess this is mostly academic, but I think that there is no efficiency loss when cities which are not growing are producing settlers (no surplus -> food is converted into hammers). Then it does not really matter which city produces a knight and which one a settler. However, now in our situation as units cost less hammers than settlers, it is better to do one settler triple-whip than two smaller whips producing e.g. 3 axes because of happiness penalty.

Regarding whip vs. mines: That depends of course highly on city size as the food-to-hammers conversion gets worse with every additional pop point.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

My question then is, is it worth going Lib-Nat-Taj AND quick-building Oxford AND building a stack of 50 knights? I suspect we may be in a "pick two" scenario.

[Sullla]

Since we're in yet another lull in this game, let me explain my philosophy for our team going forward. We've already achieved all of our early game goals: fast opening, claim lots of land, NAP up with all neighbors, etc. We've had the most cities and the most total population for a very long time now, and we've managed to also research the most techs of any team (with the slight caveat that Apolyton is one medieval tech ahead of us at present due to their lightbulb). We've gotten most of the wonders that we targeted, losing out on just Oracle by one turn and Mausoleum by two turns (to a team that we're pretty sure had marble). We're basically in exactly the place we want to be.

Over the next 25 turns, we want to prioritize the following goals:

* Trigger Golden Age for free civics swaps and Great Scientist generation (currently on schedule).

* Take free Great Artist at Music (planned eot 121).

* Be the first team to Liberalism and claim Nationalism as free tech.

* Build Taj Mahal, both for free Golden Age and to deny Mausoleum Golden Age to CivFr.

The last point there is what I view as our #1 most important goal right now. The swing of 20 turns of Golden Age is simply enormous. Even worse, we're pretty sure that CivFr has their own copy of marble, which puts us in a tough spot for Taj purposes. I am hoping that we'll be able to get marble from CivFanatics when we need it; thankfully, we already signed a treaty that forces them to give us marble later on when we ask for it. This needs to be our top priority moving forward. I firmly believe that it was Parkin's Mausoleum/Taj play that caused him to win Pitboss #4 over me and plako by chaining together 36 turns of Golden Age in a row. None of us could keep up with that economic power for such an extended Golden Age. We have to try and keep CivFr, the one team in a real position to challenge us for the win, from pulling off the same kind of combination. (Maybe we'll get lucky and CivPlayers will attack them or something, but we can't count on that happening.)

As far as attacking the German team... well, that's definitely a secondary priority to our economic goals. The Germans are technologically backwards and will remain that way. There's no tech trading in this game, and this isn't RB Mod where the known civ bonus gives big discounts on research. They'll have to research everything themselves, and that will never catch up to us. I'm not sure if people realize just how far behind they are; here's the numbers breakdown on our chart:

Realms Beyond: 6678 beakers (16 Ancient / 8 Classical techs)
Germans: 1476 beakers (11 Ancient / 0 Classical techs)

Not even one Classical tech yet. We have them down as missing basic stuff like Masonry and Archery, as well as every single tech on the religious line (no Meditation, Polytheism, Monotheism, etc.) They need to research Mathematics and Construction just to build catapults. They don't even have Monarchy, much less Feudalism. In other words, that team is a sitting duck that we can come back to whenever we want. There's no reason to rush. If we hit them with cuirassiers and muskets instead of knights and maces, then so what? It only makes it that much easier. So long as we're still expanding and settling more cities (which we are, there's tons of open space on the map still), then I see no reason to race off and fight any time soon.

In the extreme long term, our true goal is to race to Communism tech as soon as possible. State Property civic abuse of "distance to city" maintenance costs and workshop / watermill spam is the key to winning on any Huge map. This is a really big map, and there are vast stretches of grassland tiles under all that jungle. We can spam cities ENDLESSLY, fill them up with 2/3 workshop tiles, and then overrun anyone we want. Combine that with the ability to draft an unending swarm of muskets/rifles, and it will be almost impossible for us to lose. (We can draft 5 cities per turn on this Huge map, so if we got up to 40-50 cities, we can produce a truly mindboggling swarm of units at almost no cost whatsoever.) This is what I learned from oledavy's team in the Pitboss #6 game; I thought they had a better overall tech path through the industrial era than Speaker and I did. We're in a perfect position to replicate the fast Communism strategy (oh, and by the way, stone for KREMLIN abuse too!!!) and just run over anyone we want.

Anyway, in the short run we'll be picking up Civil Service and Literature in the next few turns. Then the Golden Age gives us enough beakers to claim Drama / Music / Metal Casting / Horseback Riding / Philosophy techs - about 4500 beakers in 8 turns. From there, we evaluate how we stand in the Liberalism/Taj races and go from there. I'm estimating a Liberalism finishing date of roughly T140 right now. All of that is more important than trying to defeat the German team quickly, which we can do any time we want later.