Microplan Potluck! Get feedback on your CIV early game.

[SevenSpirits]

I love this idea. I assume the primary goal and motivator is to encourage people who may not have tried simming to see the benefits of it, and to provide feedback and learning etc?

Kind of! I wouldn't say it's about learning the benefits of simming so much as simming is a useful tool for it. It's about gaining some understanding of the effects of your choices, by comparing the outcomes of different ways of doing things. (Simming is an easy way to compare different alternatives that you come up with, and here you get the additional benefit of comparing to plans that other people come up with.) In addition, I figure that having a specific sandbox we've all gotten to know a bit provides a useful shared context within which we can have some educational discussions.

[Cheater Hater]

Comments on Cheater Hater's plan:

Your plan really shows the power of a worker-worker opening and early chops. The downside with the chops is... that your forests have been chopped. And if you don't chop then maybe you don't need the second worker. It would be interesting though to see how my general plan would work with a worker-worker opening.

I considered settling for the southern copper but even though you can share some great tiles with the capital, your city doesn't claim any new food resources.

I felt like the double-worker start (and thus all the chops) was worth it for three reasons:
1. Barbs being off means I don't have to invest much in early defense, and thus can afford waiting to build major defenses until I hook up the close copper.
2. With all the floodplains and river grasslands, there are a lot of tiles I actively want to work, which makes me want to have more workers.
3. On this first try, I had no idea how I was going to a decent amount of development (notably, a third city) without using all the chops.

As for the second city, I knew it didn't have food, but I felt the floodplains made up for that--am I overvaluing the floodplains' value in making up my food deficit? Your third city is definitely a good city (and would be my 4th or 5th most likely), but I felt it took too long to get to (considering my double-worker start meant I would want to get copper early to make up for my lack of warriors).

[retep]

This looks fun, though I don't like quick I always get all the timing wrong. I'll give it a shot.

[Twinkletoes89]

My attempt - I am sure people can do better but I want to learn

Immediately move settler to forested plains hill SE of position

T1 - Settle city - research to BW - Build worker

T9 - Worker finish - moves to start farming Corn - Build Warrior

T10 - BW researched - revolt to Slavery - Start research Wheel

T12 - Farm done

T13 - Worker 1 (W1) moves to grass hill NE of corn

T14 - Size 2 - Swap build to Settler - W1 starts mine

T15 -

T16 - Wheel researched - start AH - Mine complete

T17 - W1 move to forest silk 1N of capital

T18 - Start chop

T19 - Whip settler for overflow

T20 - Settler moves to position in screenshot - Capital builds worker - chop comes in



T21 - Settler 1E, W1 moves 2E, Worker 2 (W2) moves to Banana & starts farming - Capital completes earlier warrior build

T22 - Settler moves to hill to found next turn. W1 moves 1E. Capital starts building another warrior

T23 - AH researched (Pottery next) - Shanghai founded (build set as worker) - W1 starts pasturing Sheep

T24 - Banana farm complete

T25 - Capital Size 3 - swap build to Settler - W2 moves 1E - Pasture completes



T26 - W1 moves SW - W2 starts chop

T27 - W1 starts chop

T28 - Whip settler for overflow, W2 chop comes in

T29 - Settler 2N - Capital starts worker - W2 start road on Banana - W1 chop in for Shanghai to finish worker

T30 - Pottery completes (Writing next) - Settler moves to settling spot - W1 start road Sheep - Worker 3 (W3) starts copper mine



So by next turn I will have 3 cities, 4 workers and 3 warriors

[retep]

Can I post more than one? I have two and I can't decide which is better.

[SevenSpirits]

Go for it!

[TheHumanHydra]

Okay, time for my terribad plan, then to read what everyone else has done:

Prepare to laugh your face off. So I experimented with several different openings, then picked one that looked ... interesting, and iterated on it. Let's walk through it:

T0 I moved 1SE to the forested plains hill; t1 I settled there and selected - this is where it gets good -




- that's right, a settler.

Fast forward 11 turns; the settler and Bronze Working complete and I select a worker and Hunting (actually I selected different techs in different run-throughs; I couldn't quite get both Animal Husbandry and Pottery, plus Bronze Working, by eot29/30 like I wanted, even skipping Hunting). Settler goes south ...




... and founds the next turn, t12. Another worker, using the ivory:




Finally I let the capital grow; the freshly-farmed corn speeds this a turn:




Meanwhile Shanghai's just-produced worker mines the copper S-SW of the city ...




... and I perform my first tile reassignment, to shave a turn off Shanghai's growth too:







Shanghai gets the corn for just one turn; after that it's these tile configurations to the end of the sim:







Meanwhile both workers moved to chop settlers in their respective cities:







They moved to their appointed places and settled t30, while the capital snuck in a worker with a quick chop on Nanjing's tile right before settling:




And that's where we stand. Four cities, three workers, two improved tiles, three chops by eot30, with another worker and another chop or tile a turn away.

Now you might notice the techs don't line up between screenshots; as I said I fiddled with them between run-throughs so I could both start granaries in the new cities t30 and start pasturing Nanjing's sheep t31, but couldn't quite get it to work. Also what Shanghai's worker does after finishing its chop is indeterminate, 'cause it can't finish anything till after the sim anyway and I haven't thought that far in depth.

If I weren't trying to cram everything into exactly 31 turns I would revolt to Slavery one of the turns the two settlers are in transit and whip the workers in both Beijing and Shanghai t31, then overflow into a pair of three-turn workers at size one (<eek>). I don't have nearly enough workers. (I didn't find revolting to Slavery earlier in the sim helped any.)

So yeah, there's my ... original and problem-ridden sim. Hopefully it was comprehensible, if not agreeable. I can provide clarification/a turn-by-turn breakdown if requested.

Thanks for running the challenge, Seven. It was quite entertaining.

Edit: Okay, I've now read everyone's plans who have posted so far. I just wanted to add for clarification that my plan is obviously totally lopsided (and Shanghai's location is terrible), not at all what you'd want to do for real. You can tell what I fine-tuned it for ...

[Ichabod]

@Novice:

My plan was very similar to yours, regarding build orders and where to place the cities (the exact same spots, actually). I started with a BW first opening, followed straight by AH. Worker chopped the forest 2N1E of the Capital instead of roading and started pasturing the sheep to be ready when Shangai is settled. So, it surprised me a lot to see that improving the pigs before the sheep like you did resulted in better development. The Capital got a second worker sooner, due to the chop, but while it appeared to make no sense at first, you're plan is better.

Well, I messed around with it a bit and I think i've found a competitive path. Mining the plains hill 2N of the Capital delays Shangai by 1 turn, but it gets Guangzhou at the same turn (due to the second settler being ready 1t earlier) and it gets the following worker + development faster. Also, you can pasture the sheep after mining, which will make Shangai grow at eot 24 and finish its worker also at eot28, but with no chops required (no stunting growth at size 1, city grows with 2 turns of sheep and 1 of pigs = 16 food), so the city, despite founded 1t later, gets similar development. It can also grow from size 2 to 3 in two turns, before starting on the worker - it delays the worker, but get a little extra commerce + development.

Not sure which is better. Just think it's interesting to note.

Hopefully I made myself clear. If not, just ask and I'll try to make it more detailed.

[retep]

I hate you seven, I hate making this sims inside the game, they take to much time

Techs : Wheel-Hunting-pottery-bronze working- animal husbandry- writing.
I move the setller and found the city on top of the bananas, start a worker.



Finish worker, move to improve the corn.



Finish the corn move to improve the ivory.
The city grow to size 3 in turn 14 start a settler. Working the corn, the ivory and a forest plains hill.



After finish the camp, move to farm the floodplain.


Turn 19 the settler finish, city start a worker working the ivory, the corn and a floodplain.
The settler is moving.


Turn 21 the worker finish the famr and moves to cottage another floodplain. Found second city start warrior.


Turn 22 worker number two finish move to the ivory to make a road. Capital start another settler.

Turn 25.
Revolt to slavery.
Worker1 is moving towards the corn, worker2 is making a cottage in a floodplain.


Turn 27. Capital finish the settler start a granary.
Worker 1 is famring the corn, worker2 is still with the cottage. Settler is moving.

Turn 29.
Found city number 3.
Second city grows to size 3 start a worker.
Capital whip the granary.


Turn 30.
Overview.

[Sullla]

Let me thank SevenSpirits for this idea, it was certainly a lot of fun to try.

Retep and I were apparently thinking along the same lines. We independently reached the same idea of moving the settler to found a capital on top of the bananas resource. The biggest advantage of doing this is that it gets the first worker out a turn faster (via working the 1/3 ivory tile over the 3/0 corn tile), speeding everything up very slightly. Start by researching Bronze Working, farm the corn, and then chop forests to speed up future workers/settlers.



I built a second worker at size 2, since the capital could reach exactly 10 foodhammers with the corn and ivory tiles together. This chop actually does nothing to speed along the second worker, but it gets funneled into a settler on the following turn with the Imperialistic bonus. Then 2 turns of working max food while growing to size 3 in the capital, followed back swapping back to the settler as the double worker chops come in:



I'm convinced that these first 19 turns can't be sped up any faster, not to get a size 3 capital along with two workers and a settler at the end of Turn 19. After that, I'm less confident that I made great moves. You guys will have to be the judges. Revolt to Slavery while moving the settler:



Retep and I also picked the same spot for the second city, on top of the invisible coal resource where Shanghai can share the wet corn and a whole bunch of floodplains tiles with Beijing. From here, I put the settler chop overflow into a third worker in the capital (still at size 3), while the existing two workers threw down some floodplains cottages for the cities to share:



At this point, two workers road over to the dry corn and farm it. They can build more grassland river cottages N-N and NE of Shanghai on their way back from the corn, but this is running over the 30 turn limit. (I'm making the moves assuming that the game will keep going forward normally, not artificially make Turn 30 look better.) The third worker threw down a single road to speed up the founding date of the third city, then went back and camped the ivory tile for the capital. I'm not at all sure that was the correct move, but I was starting to get tired of testing and simming. I think that area could be optimized better.



The plains hill with the pigs/sheep/oasis tiles goes as the third city. It's a great spot, but I'm not sure if this is where this city should be placed. It's better in the long run, weaker in the short run because it will take 2-3 turns to get workers up there for improvement. I might have done better to place this city on the plains hill south of the peak (two tiles south), while gets founded a turn sooner and could have the grassland sheep in the second ring up and running faster. I honestly don't know. That's what I would test if I were going further with this.

Beijing is over halfway finished with its granary at this point. I planned to have Beijing and Shanghai both double-whip something at size 4, either two workers or a worker and a settler. Then overflow into granaries in both cases. I have one warrior since this was a purely peaceful sandbox - I wouldn't run that thin in a real game.



Demos for the curious. This particular plan is a bit higher on commerce than many of the alternate routes, and that's both a strength and a potential criticism. Is it a good idea to throw down cottages this early? Or better to go strictly for food bonuses and worry about commerce later? I genuinely don't know.

Here's the micro text dump for the curious:

Techs: Bronze Working (eot 10) -> Wheel (eot 15) -> Pottery (eot 21) -> Hunting (eot 24) -> Animal Husbandry (eot 28) -> Writing

Builds:
Beijing: worker (eot 7) -> warrior (T8-T11) -> swap worker (eot 15) -> settler (T16) -> swap warrior (T17-18) -> settler (eot 19) -> worker (eot 23) -> granary (T24-T25) -> settler whip (eot 27) -> granary (T28-)

Shanghai: warrior (T21) -> granary (T22-)

Guangzhou: granary (T30-)

Beijing
Citizen 1: corn (T1-T2), ivory (T3-T7), corn (T8-T10), corn farm (T11-)
Citizen 2: ivory (T12-T16), FP (T17-T22), FP cottage (T23-)
Citizen 3: ivory (T19-T23), FP (T24-T26), ivory camp (T30-)
Citizen 4: ivory (T26)

Shanghai
Citizen 1: FP (T21-24), FP cottage (T25-)
Citizen 2: corn (T26-T27), corn farm (T28-)
Citizen 3: FP (T30-)

Guangzhou
Citizen 1: oasis (T30-)

Worker A
move W and farm corn (T8-T11), move E-E (T12), chop forest (T13-15), move W-NW (T16), chop forest (T17-19), move S and road (T20), move SW and road (T21), move SE and cottage (T22-23), move NW and cottage (T24-25), move W-NW and road (T26), move SW and farm (T27-T28), road (T29), move NE-NE and cottage (T30-31)

Worker B
move W-NE (T16), chop forest (T17-19), move SE and road (T20), move SW and road (T21), move SE and cottage (T22-23), move NW and cottage (T24-25), move W-NW and road (T26), move SW and farm (T27-T28), road (T29), move NE-NE and cottage (T30)

Worker C
move NE and road (T24-25), move SW-SW-SE (T26), camp ivory (T27-T29), move NW and cottage (T30)

Settler 1
move W-W-SW (T20), settle (T21)

Settler 2
move NE-N-N (T28), NW-NE (T29), settle (T30)

Revolt Slavery T20

This has also been turned into a video playthrough for YouTube, which is being uploaded as I type this. I'll post the link here once it's done. Thanks again, Seven.

EDIT: YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FID04O4ASLs