Chevalier Absolutely Knows What He's Doing as Best Korea

[skanar]

Awesome on GotH! The AIs always seem to take it in my SP games, but the one or two times I've had it it has been very powerful. The Plan advances!

Little curious about the Granary build in the capital - don't recall seeing that discussed much and not sure spending the cogs this early for a somewhat earlier pop point or two was wise. Not sure it wasn't, either, but wouldn't the earlier builder have been better?

I assume you were waiting on taking a production-boosting policy card to build builder or military (and Magnus for settlers, of course), which makes some sense, and it's the sort of thing I often do in SP myself. But I think it might be a mistake (doubly so because I would do it and I'm not very good!). It isn't like you WON'T get the boost once the card is in place, and if a builder would help the most immediately, why not go for it? Also, you bought a trader just a few turns ago. Why not skip the granary build, put the cogs into the trader instead, and save the gold for future upgrades?

Worth trying to scout Japper a little more closely? How can his 2nd city be so late? Did he invest in builders/granaries and try to go tall? Only other explanation I can think of is a rush with his Ancient UU - what's his power? Awful glad for that DOF right now, but need to be ready when it expires....

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Little curious about the Granary build in the capital - don't recall seeing that discussed much and not sure spending the cogs this early for a somewhat earlier pop point or two was wise. Not sure it wasn't, either, but wouldn't the earlier builder have been better?

I assume you were waiting on taking a production-boosting policy card to build builder or military (and Magnus for settlers, of course), which makes some sense, and it's the sort of thing I often do in SP myself. But I think it might be a mistake (doubly so because I would do it and I'm not very good!). It isn't like you WON'T get the boost once the card is in place, and if a builder would help the most immediately, why not go for it? Also, you bought a trader just a few turns ago. Why not skip the granary build, put the cogs into the trader instead, and save the gold for future upgrades?

Worth trying to scout Japper a little more closely? How can his 2nd city be so late? Did he invest in builders/granaries and try to go tall? Only other explanation I can think of is a rush with his Ancient UU - what's his power? Awful glad for that DOF right now, but need to be ready when it expires....

Good questions. The main reason I went with a granary before the builder was that the earlier builder actually isn't more helpful to me - this builder's job will be to chop 3 times - once for a district, twice for settlers. I don't want to chop without Magnus, and the soonest Magnus can be ready is 6 turns from now, because you have to wait 5 turns for a governor to establish himself in a city before he takes effect (except for loyalty bonuses. Not sure if I'll get my 10% science and culture boost right away, either, or if he needs to settle in first). So, finishing the builder would have meant the builder was just standing around waiting for Magnus. 

I also saw that at size 5 I'll be hitting the growth penalty, and losing half my food every turn. I want to keep growing upwards, since that's one of my biggest weaknesses as a player, so I consciously took the decision to lift the housing cap early, letting none of my food surplus go to waste. Didn't want to start a military unit without agoge, since I'm using that to add another +50% to Magnus's chops, and as for building a trader instead of buying, uh, shut up! 

No, though, I just didn't plan far enough ahead, and I probably could have saved the money. At least I have a granary now, though, eh? Alhambram is building one in his capital, too, so we're not crazy. I can also see that Alhambram hasn't finished early empire yet, since his borders are still open to me! So I actually arrived at Magnus at the same time despite his earlier monument - guess my culture city cancelled it out. 

As for Japper, yes, it's definitely worthwhile - my slinger was on the way there when all the barbs showed up. I'd like to get a glimpse of some of his capital, although I'm probably too late to see the city itself. Once I deal with the camp, I'll once again send a unit that way - probably a warrior, though, and keep the slingers close to home to upgrade and defend. He has points from his Unique Improvement in the era score, so I think he's gone builder-heavy. Not a lot of pop, though - it's hard to just grow upwards because you need the housing, and housing is limited in the early game.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 42

Please excuse the lack of Douglas Adams jokes in this update. However, in honor of the famous old author, my civilization decides that this "writing" thing is a crackin' great idea and implements the new technology all over the empire:




Woo, Seowons incoming! Once I clear their tiles...Anyway, JRTI's border picker is doing great - it grabbed my seowon site naturally with its last move, and in about two turns it's going to grab the holy site naturally as well. No need to purchase tiles at either city yet! Awesome. I plan on opening with 2 seowns & two holy sites, and that might be the only two holy sites I build for the rest of the game, unless I lose out on JE and have to take Choral Music, in which case I'll use HS as mini-production/culture boosters. Not too terrible an investment. 

This is the more significant development:



It stops Alhambram from peering inside my borders the way I did his capital, but more significantly, it unlocks the first governor title of the game! Ohboyohboyohboyohboy - 




-ohboyohboyohboy! Hello, my lovely. Would you like to come home with me? Yes you would! You would! What a good boy you are! Come, let us go to my capital and commence chopping! 

[Note that Victor only needs 3 turns to establish himself. That's not bad, and makes him more viable in an emergency. I never noticed that before.]

Here's the timeline: We're 5 turns from Magnus being all set up to chop, which is just enough time to finish a builder and set up a warrior chop. I might even need to spend a turn on the seowon, since the city is growing so fast. I will chop the warrior for a 3x boost, which perfectly pays for a Holy Site, then I can quickly crank out the half-cost seowon while the builder moves and I unlock Provision. Once I hit State Workforce, we swap into Colonization and I start chopping settlers. With the +50% policy in place, there's no need to slow-build the settler one turn from completion, since I'm getting the same overflow anyway - I'm overflowing into another settler! Then I'll chop that and overflow into possibly a THIRD settler (for I Saw It First, I think). Then move Magnus to OCISLY and do it again for Gravitas, But Who's Counting, and Me I'm Counting. THen we're up to 8 cities, 9 with Antioch, and we go hard military to keep the Dutch or Injuns from taking my stuff. 

Here's the empire overview, with Magnus:




NINE pop next turn! Too bad they nerfed population-based science, 'coz this is great growth on my part. 

Situation at the front. I wanted to wait another turn to finish the camp, but I'm out of time:




The horsening is upon us! If I wait, ANOTHER horse will spawn, and then a horse ARCHER, and another after THAT, and I'll have a devil of a time clearing this! No, we take it now or never:




Staggering, bruised and bleeding, the last surviving soldier in his company of 100 men raises the banner of Korea over the slain bodies of the barbarian warriors. It cost nearly my entire warrior unit, but the camp is clear. I have a promotion saved, so I'll get a jump start on healing this hero up. Meanwhile, the northern warrior climbs the hill to the southeast and takes up a defensive position. He'll hold there and let the horse wreck itself against him, then march back to the main empire. 

The whole battle is perfectly timed  from a research standpoint, as my next necessary tech gets a boost:




Pains me to unlock a 4th district type so early, but I have to be able to clear jungle to place districts anyway so there's no choice. Bah. 

Abroad, there's a bit of movement. Alhambram sent a warrior to sniff around OCISLY, and he's also finished Early Empire and stuck Magnus in place:




I wonder how much chopping he has available? My capital seems to have passed his a bit, as he's still working on a granary and has no districts complete. He's been building military units, though, with a power score 30 points higher than mine (80 to 50). I'm still last in the game, with only 2 warriors and 2 slingers, all but one of them injured. I'll fix that before the DoFs end. 

Abroad, Rowain and Japper both have districts done, Campuses:




Only Rowain leads me in science though, with his ziggurats. He also leads in culture, and in power, with the Archduke close behind on that count. I hope there's a bloody Mongol/Sumerian war, serves 'em right, the warmongers. Let the rest of us builders build in peace. Both Japper and Rowain were really slow to a second city - Japper is still at 1 - and I'm not sure the early districts were worth it (well,  Rowain's fine, actually). 

Situation at end of turn:




Slinger is withdrawing north, pulling both barb warriors after it. A new slinger spawned and is guarding the camp, though. I've almost bought enough time for my warriors to return, though, and this camp won't spawn anything I can't handle. I will continue to play cautiously and wait for reinforcements, this situation is under control and warrants no reckless risk-taking like the horse camp. Alhambram is paying a visit, as well. 

Top half of scoreboard:




And the bottom half:




I'm in a really good spot. Civics wise I am in the middle of the pack, ahead of Japper but behind Rowain. I have more tech than anyone, except Rowain, and I havne't even unlocked Seowons yet. And in all-important empire, I'm first, tied only with Archduke and Rowain (who has a district), with 2 pop points coming next turn. All this, and yet I'm in last or near-last because I don't have any Era score. Yes, pay no attention to that Korea behind the curtain, he sucks. 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 43

I open the save to find that the slinger also has left the camp and come out to attack me:




With Alhambram's warrior blocking the direct line of retreat, I have no choice but to stand and fight. Alhambram! : I bring the slinger down to my level, hopefully the defensive terrain will give me an advantage - but with the barb having first strike that may not be enough. 

And it's only just now that I'm remembering I forgot to move the other slinger, who is being pursued by barbarians. Horsefeathers. I hate screwing up like that. Oh, well, hopefully I can still save him? It's another agoge-chop, but dang, I liked that promoted guy. 

Meanwhile, an injured barb scout has shown up on the OTHER side of JRTI:




I really should have seen this coming - I never did find what happened to the scout from the other camp. He probably saw Valetta, which is why he's wounded, and why the horses start spawning. Bah! Last turn I thought I had the barbs under control, now they could cost me 2 slingers and a quarry! I sure screwed the pooch on this one, eh? 

We have a little bit of slack. I've somehow crept into the top half of the leaderboard:




Mostly through my high population. My era score is behind everyone except for Emperor, which is still doing a good job of masking me. Sans era-score, Rowain has 50 points, I have 46, Archduke has 42, Alhambram has 41, Emperor has 40, and Japper has 36. Rowain's insane culture output has netted him 6 civics, while most people have only finished 4. He's certainly got the starting 3, plus military tradition, early empire, and mysticism, I think. However, I think he only just finished early empire - that would ahve been the last inspiration he got. 

Here's the lower half of the scoreboard, for reference:




I always look at Empire score first - showing cities, districts, and pop (5 points per city, 3 points per non-unique district, or 6 for a unique, and 1 point per pop, plus I think 1 for the palace). Then civics and tech - 2 points per tech, 3 per civic, that was a change for R&F, not sure why - and only then do I look at everything else. Era score is good for clues but is mostly useless at predicting civilizational strength. 

Speaking of, I'm worried that I'm going to miss a Dark Age entirely. Clearing that barb campw ill give me 3 points, and the Seowon will grant another 4. That will put me at...13. Nuts.

[aetryn]

Turn 43
...

I always look at Empire score first - showing cities, districts, and pop (5 points per city, 3 points per non-unique district, or 6 for a unique, and 1 point per pop, plus I think 1 for the palace). Then civics and tech - 2 points per tech, 3 per civic, that was a change for R&F, not sure why - and only then do I look at everything else. Era score is good for clues but is mostly useless at predicting civilizational strength. 

Speaking of, I'm worried that I'm going to miss a Dark Age entirely. Clearing that barb campw ill give me 3 points, and the Seowon will grant another 4. That will put me at...13. Nuts.

If the camp's far enough away it should only be 2, but that's still too much.

I agree that Era Score is entirely useless to predicting civ strength. Personally, I would rather look at beakers per turn and culture per turn if it's available over raw techs/civics finished. There are often good reasons for leaving a military tech or any cultural advancement at 1 turn to go, and beelining will often result in fewer, but sometimes more effective techs (plus catching up on the earlier stuff will happen quickly if the science is high enough). Plus, even if raw techs reflects a real tech lead, beakers per turn is a better leading indicator. Empire score is pretty good as it is, but it's nicer if you can get the full analysis. A player getting their empire score from a good number of cities with no districts and a lot of score from pop but bumping the housing cap seems less scary simply because there's likely to be some stagnation in the near future. Similarly, Russia with inflated Era score from early Lavras counting as double points everywhere isn't probably quite as string as its points indicate.

Struggles with barbarian camps notwithstanding, I think this is still a promising start.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 44

While the situation with the slingers remains grim, with careful handling I think I can get out of this. Let's dive right in, shall we?

First, the northern, promoted slinger is still alive - the river probably saved him:




I think I can withdraw across the river, then onto those forested hills while one barb crosses the river, then it's a sprint for JRTI and healing. Either north across the plains and swing down in the city, or south and across the seowon hill. I should be able to keep ahead. [note that I had CQUI enabled from PBEM7, I pause and fix that].

Here's the other slinger:




The hill didn't do nearly as much as I hoped, and the slinger is nearly a wreck - first strike does indeed matter that much. Doesn't help that I swapped Discipline for agoge, but eh, production wins wars. Anyway, Alhambram COULD have screwed me over by keeping his warrior in place, but he continues his scouting mission. That enables me to withdraw directly behind the hill, where any other direction would have doomed me to the slinger. The hill will buy me one turn, then, thanks to the road I've built, I can withdraw to the jungle and then safely into OCISLY and heal. 

Withdrawing the slinger reveals some more tiles for I Blame the Parents, including horses! There's 3 in my area, apparently! 




So the expedition to deal with the barb camp in the east using just slingers has failed disastrously, and I'll be lucky to extract two slingers from the shambles. I will wait, heal up, and then try again with 3 slingers and 3 warriors in about ten turns, then I can take that army, upgrade the slingers to archers, and take Antioch. 

Note that Alhambram is sending a trade route to Antioch - I can see the road on the map (forgot to snap a photo, sorry). It's coming from his northern city, and is netting him a bit of gold. 

On the other front, the horseman is futilely assailing my warrior on the hill, as Emperor's scout wanders by:




Easy to just wait here and weather the assaults, I heal between attacks and I have better terrain, plus barb horsemen aren't as strong as regular versions. This front is under control and the newly-promoted hero warrior starts his trek back to the capital. I'll pause and heal up there alongside the slingers, then push out along with some new builds. 

Scoreboard and civ overview:






Rowain is crushing everyone, but he has a very ancient-era focused civ. Ziggurats will become less important over time. Plus, the score uniquely rewards his civ - he gets 3 points per civic, instead of 2 per tech, so a culture advantage is exaggerated, and he has 18! era points. It's a much closer game than Rowain is making it look.

Archduke is a little behind me, Alhambram and Emperor are perfectly tied a little behind him, and Japper is lagging due to his late settler. 

Magnus will start becoming available for players to chop with soon (3 turns for me! That means I'll spend 2 investing in a seowon), so these scores are going to start exploding and spreading out here soon.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

For future Magnus reference:




Purely for my own amusement, let's run the numbers on Stonehenge instead of a Holy Site (since I don't need naturally generated faith much). We have stone by the capital, so we could place it there. 

We have 6 techs, so stone* (through agoge) gets us 45 x 3 = 135 cogs! Woah! That's...actually really good. We'd have 45 cogs left, ie, a single extra chop to finish it, or a few turns of native production. And no one could take DotF or JE from me. Hmmm...Too bad I can't run Maritime Industries, or one chop would grab the wonder.

Okay, guys, that was just an exercise, but now I'm really wondering if this is the way to go. I don't need to invest in a Holy Site this way, I guarantee my pick of beliefs, I'm giving up a stone at the capital but hell, I could be ready to do this in 2 turn when the warrior is established (I need to buy the tile or destroy my lovely rice farm). Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. 

Timeline would be:
T45: Builder steps onto quarry.
T46: Builder removes quarry (I suck at planning ahead or I wouldn'ta built the dang thing, probably)
T47 chop. Not sure how many cogs the warrior will need. Let's say we get 120 into the wonder, 60 left. 
T48 builder steps onto forest.
T49 builder chops forest, gets 36 x 2 = 72 cogs, more than enough.

I'll sleep on it. This might be worth a shot to have the religion in place on t49. Plus we'd get 162 faith, nearly enough to buy our first apostle and evangelize. 

Downsides: This delays our holy site district, but hell, we don't need it. We DO need a Seowon to boost State Workforce. State Workforce is due in 8 turns, so we need a Seowon by turn 49 to get the boost. I'm willing to swap to another civic, although note that I'll have time to sink some cogs into the seowon first (or into the wonder, hell), AND use some of the wonder-overflow to boost the district, so we're probably looking at turn 50/51.

The main motivating factor for this is the early DOTF. No one has successfully yet attacked a civ defended by that belief, and with my tech advantage from lots of Seowons it'll be REALLY tough to get superior units to me.

Right now I'm leaning towards taking the shot. The danger zone is T48-49 - if anyone finishes in that window...well, in that case, I just funnel the cogs into a holy site anyway! No worries! You get failproduction, so all I've lost is my stone tile (a bummer, but I have more!).

*fun fact: you can chop the stone that you used to place Stonehenge with.

[skanar]

Can you found the religion with Stonehenge and no HS? Remembering that that was impossible for a while. Not sure what the situation is in R&F.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

You can found just with Stonehenge (I added a few paragraphs to the post, btw, sort of talking myself into it).

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Seowon would cost 54 cogs. Overflow from the wonder + 2 turns or so of production should do it. I can get more specific numbers when the save comes back to me tomorrow, which is when I'd need to start implementing the plan.