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

[yuris125]

There's a weird thing there - it just says "horses" without quantity

[yuris125]

T18

The other notable thing is Nicolae's numbers. <...> My guess is, he's using a Settler using starvation loophole.

Good call by me, I guess?

Hope Nicolae's Spearman doesn't indicate his planned position for the second city. I would think going for a unique luxury would be better than settling sugar he already has, but that double sugar spot has decent yields and is important strategically (even if it's just to stop me from settling there), so I wouldn't be surprised at all if he settles there

[yuris125]

T23

Sorry for lack of updates - nothing interesting happened over the last 5 turns. I was pretty much following the plan outlined earlier, and now live in fear of "Stonehenge was BIADL". Two more turns....

Nicolae settled the city T22 (I didn't see it last turn, but I'm first in the turn order). The good news is, because he spent so long moving the settler, I actually won't be that far behind (my second city is currently scheduled for T26). The bad news is, the location his chose is annoying




This spot does make more sense for Nic than the double sugar location I suspected he was going to settle. This one is better for landgrabbing, is on a hill, and does claim a unique luxury. It is much closer to me though

Fortunately, it doesn't invalidate the desert gold spot, which I'm going to settle as the second city and hopefully establish our border this way. Nicolae doesn't have much military - I saw a Worker in his land, which means his build order almost certainly was Scout-Stele-Worker-Settler, I don't see how he could've had hammers for anything else. Which means my 3 Scouts actually are an unbeatable force for him

Now, if I want to annoy Nicolae back, there's still a way for me to claim the sugar - the spot marked on the screenshot is a valid location. Do I want to try?...

Still no Worker in Hanoi, another setback as I thought I would have one by now. Maybe next turn. I seriously need to start improving my luxuries, as all cities after the second one would be suboptimal to settle on luxuries (or just impossible)

[yuris125]

T24

Settler on the way! Will settle on the gold in 2 turns




Finally Hanoi. Took your time, didn't you? You're not getting paid for this job, I can tell you that




Scout is positioned so that he can steal the Worker from whatever tile Hanoi move the Worker onto. They're neutral atm, so shouldn't be scared to move it out of the city

[yuris125]

I'll have limited time to post tomorrow, so going to do as much of T25 overview as possible now, as I don't expect this info to change. Tomorrow I'll take screenshots of the capital (hopefully with neatly arranged stones next to it) and talk about the decision to settle where I settled (spoiler alert: I think I made the right choice). The rest of info Dave asked for is here

Ruins: this is my biggest disappointment of the game so far. I don't think I could've done a better job of scouting, I did invest in Scouts, so I have to dismiss it as bad luck. But only finding 2 ruins by T25 is very low. That being said, results were about as good as it gets. T0 culture and T11 citizen to size 4

Build order: Scout-Scout-Monument-Scout-Stonehenge. Plan for the foreseeable future is 2 or 3 Settlers then Pyramids

Policies: fuelled by the T0 culture ruin, I took the following policies: T2 Tradition opener, T7 Liberty opener, T14 Republic, T24 Collective Rule

Tradition opener is the most controversial pick, T-hawk criticised it, and I hate disagreeing with T-hawk, because it means one of us is wrong, and chances are it's not him. That being said, I think on this map, with this capital, it was the correct choice. I completely agree that taking Tradition opener just because it provides culture for future policies is not worthwhile - it's not free, it delays even the early policies by 2 turns, and the delay becomes larger later in the game. But in my case, it helped to expand borders tremendously, and allowed me to work better tiles throughout the early game. My initial plan was to work the 0/2 hill at size 2 just because it was the best tile until the initial border pop; popping borders before the first growth and working the 2/1 sheep instead meant more growth and more science earlier in the game. I was able to work better tiles at all sizes, didn't have to switch to the 0/2 hill until size 5 (when I needed production boost for Stonehenge), and the worst tile I had to work until then was the 2/0/2 silk. It's hard to quantify the gain in yield without a sandbox, but my feeling is that Tradition opener was worthwhile

If there's anything you want me to cover in the update tomorrow, apart from screenshots of the capital and discussion of its location, let me know

[yuris125]

T25

So, my glorious capital. Here's the screenshot. Stones have been neatly arranged as planned




Because this location pretty much forced me to take Tradition opener for fast border expansion, I had had some second thoughts about it. But looking at how it developed and at the starting screenshot, I'm confident this was the best option. The 3-food lake fish was clearly the best tile I could see from the start; city growth may not be as important in Civ5 as in Civ4, but you don't want to be stuck at size 1 and 2 either. Any other reasonable option forced me to lose a turn by crossing the river, lose the second hammer in the city centre tile, and put the fish in the third ring. I think the capital spot was an interesting choice, but ultimately I'm happy with the choice I made

Here's how the capital looks on the inside. I worked the fish tile from the very start and until the last turn, but moved to the horse now for the extra hammer due to settler starvation loophole




Now the Worker situation... briefly: it sucks




That barb just had to show up...

I actually attacked the barb with the Scout. Hopefully Hanoi's bombardment will kill it and they will feel safe to move the Worker out. But it seems more and more likely that I may end up in unhappiness for a few turns due to improving luxuries so late

Have to say I very much overestimated the amount of gold I was going to have in this game. With the primary income source of Civ5 not available and so few ruins and city states I managed to find, the plan I had at the start (to have an Archer and a Worker bought by about now) appears to be magical Christmas land level optimistic

[T-hawk]

But in my case, it helped to expand borders tremendously, and allowed me to work better tiles throughout the early game.

Yeah, this is the part I really can't quantify. The border expansion aspect, both the culture at the capital and the discount everywhere, does have value. My instinct is to say, it's not important, you can just buy tiles that you need... but that's also a significant opportunity cost. If Tradition saves you buying one tile per city, that's ~350 gold for 6 cities, not a trivial number, that's the value of a worker purchase which puts the policy in line on strength with Citizenship and similarly front-loaded.

The real question is the value of the Tradition opener against its opportunity cost later in the game. What policy will you miss later because of it? In my single-player games that would be Mercantilism getting squeezed out between the opening and Rationalism unlocking, and that's major. This is a lot harder to gauge in MP though where policies are more than just racing to Rationalism over all.

[yuris125]

Yeah fair points. I experimented with Tradition opener in SP years ago, and my conclusion was the same as yours, it does not help the early game and slows down the late game in SP. But here... the map is not fertile, many tiles will not be worth working until I have Civil Service-improved farms, I needed to get the tiles which were worth working inside my borders as quickly as possible, and gold is not exactly flowing in MP without luxury sales. I think so many plains on the map were the reason others stopped growth at size 3 or 4, while I was able to grow to size 5 working good tiles, thus improving science

It's an interesting difference between SP and MP, although it still the corollary of the core difference, which imo is the fact that resource sales, non-existent in MP, are such a large part of economy in SP

[chumchu]

It is a bit like creative in that it allows you to place your cities a bit further from both luxury resources and good tiles that the expansion algorithm hates like hills and jungles. I have used it for that in some games and got a lot of city development tempo from it. It also allows you to put a left over policy in aristocracy which is a pretty good happy policy when you get your cities to size 10.

[yuris125]

T26

City settled




Immediately bought the stone tile to make sure I get it and not Nic. In this situation, Archer before Monument. Sad, but needs must

Barb Warrior at Hanoi survived at 5hp. Not entirely unexpected - city bombardment can't deal 27dmg this early in the game - but disappointing. I may want to build a Worker in the capital before the next Settler

Someone took a pantheon - culture and faith from wine and incense. Would've thought it would be HAK with all his incense, but no, it's an unknown civ. Yet another unknown civ took God-King a while ago. I thought I would be second to the pantheon, didn't think I will end up 4th. Not that it matters too much

My pantheon should be ready next turn. I'm having another change of heart and thinking about taking Stone Circles. My capital is settled on stone, I have stone in the second city, and will have it in the third if I nab the second gold spot from HAK. Do you guys know if the stone under my capital will count as quarry and give faith with Stone Circles after I research Masonry?