Ducki Does C3C at Emperor

[Cerbykins]

Absolute truth. My micromanagement ranges from what the dog left behind to non-existent - and I do reasonably well

Still...no doubt the mm helps, and perhaps one day we should bother

[ducki]

Dom, I was just wondering if you had a sav from your playing of this one. Since I have such a hard time "just knowing" the numbers, maybe it would help if I actually look at your tile improvements in-game.

[Dominae]

Well, I went ahead and finished this game, just to see if I could beat my personal record for earliest victory date, Emperor-level.

I won by Domination in 640AD, scoring 8871 points.

Here's a short report, just because I feel like writing one.

I expanded quite aggressively early on, using a 4-turn Settler-pump, a 2-turn Worker-pump, and cheap Temples. This allowed me to peacefully grab 3 Luxury resources and a source of Iron from under the Celt's noses. The game would have shaped up rather differently without those resources. The tech game I played is described a few posts above.

I knew I wanted this to be a Warmonger game, so I built up 30 Warriors, hit the Medieval era, and set Science to 0% in order to upgrade them all. It was actually quicker to stay in Despotism to do so due to Republic's support costs (I had about 40 Workers at that point, too). At ~60gpt it was going to take a long time to upgrade all my Warriors. The other civs were dirt poor and could not be exploited to speed up the process. Thankfully some AI eventually researched Monarchy, and I had enough Gold to upgrade 15 Warriors in no-time.

Initially I was going to take out the lone civ down South, the Babylonians, since they promised to become quite powerful. However, from a logistics perspective it made more sense to start up North and stay up North. The Babs could be depended on to keep me afloat in tech during my warmongering, but this never panned out (they went for Education while I avoided it and did the Cavalry beeline).

I attacked the Celts in 300BC, grabbing their captial and the Oracle. I then proceeded to their neighbors the Mayans, netting me the Temple of Artemis. What a wonderful Wonder for this game! Since I was keeping everyone at war, and therefore keeping the teck pace low and me in the lead, I figured I could exploit the free Temples until game's end. Cavalry works just as well without Education!

I then cleaned up the Incans (only 4 cities), the Iroquois (only 4 cities, after a long war with the Aztecs), and that was it for my Swordsmen (then Medieval Infantry) offensive.

I went on a Military Tradition beeline, and stopped trading with the Babylonians and Americans to ensure they would be nice and backward when their time came. I completed Leonardo's Workshop, which triggered my GA due to all the Wonders I had conquered already (specifically, the Colossus and the Temple of Artemis). This catapulted my research to a 4-turn pace, and allowed all my core cities to produce 2-turn Horsemen (Madrid, the capital, was my only 30 Shield per turn city).

All the while I stayed in Monarchy because of the ~80 Horsemen and other units I accumulated. At Military Tradition I once again set Science to 0%, and declared war on the Babs once I could upgrade to 40 Cavalry. Their city of Babylon held the Great Library, but I razed it so as to keep profiting from the Temple of Artemis and speed up a Domination victory. I was actually hoping for a Conquest victory, but the Babs held a city on a one-tile island, and were absolutely unwilling to give it up. I was absolutely unwilling to wait for Marines to finish the job.

The Aztecs then demanded Saltpeter, and seven turns later they were down to one city. Domination triggered the turn after.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Dominae
I won by Domination in 640AD, scoring 8871 points.

I'll include a brief report below, simply because I feel like writing one.

I'm especially interested in the first turn of war against the Babylonians.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by lockstep
I'm especially interested in the first turn of war against the Babylonians.

Most of the wars in this game (for my part) were very simple: due to Culture superiority, my borders were adjacent to many border city targets, which meant even Swordsmen could assault without warning on the first turn of a war. Against the Babs it was even easier because I had Cavalry.

I did get sort of lucky in that the Babs did not have Musketmen, yet had a source of Saltepeter within their borders (it was way off on a Mountain outside any city's 21-tile radius). I had my part in this, mind you, because the turn after I discovered Gunpowder, I built up a couple of Galley/Musketmen teams and send them down as a denial strategy. I declared war on the Babs about five turns after they had discovered Gunpowder for themselves, and their Worker team that had midway to hooking up the source fled when my Musketmen disembarked just one tile away.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ducki
Dom, I was just wondering if you had a sav from your playing of this one. Since I have such a hard time "just knowing" the numbers, maybe it would help if I actually look at your tile improvements in-game.

Sure. Check my screenshot a few posts above for a good idea what my empire looked like in full REX mode.

Here's a savegame from turn two of the war against the Celts (feel free to play out the fall of Entremont!). Madrid was taken off Settler-pump duty a few turns ago, and is on to Wonder-building (which is why those Forests are still around and being worked instead of chopped).

[Enriquillo]

Trust me, it is still a strat game. You can micromanage all you want, but if you can't strategize, its all for not.

I know, that's why I'm playing Civ and not simcity
I'm fairly good at strategy if I may say so, and this game doesn't need much strategy in order to be succesfull in SP.

MP is a different matter altogether, there strategy plays a much bigger role, but so does speed (=early warmongering).

[ducki]

Ok, I'm still trying to wrap my head around exactly how to create a pump, so here's what I think(read guess) I should do in this situation. (Before you ask about the temple, I cancelled the Granary so I could just squirt a settler out to the (hopefully) pump site. A temple is the only build that hits the timing "right".
And really, this is just about how to build a pump.

N.B. - In the screenshot, pretend the mined plains and the irrigated plains are switched, otherwise irrigating the grassland wheat is a real pain.

I'm really just not "getting it" on this. Also, you guys mentioned floating pop between 4-6 and said your settler builds were with shield outputs of 7+7+8+8 - that would be from 4-7, wouldn't it? I smell an awful lot of micromanagement in my future. I've no idea what laborers to put on what tiles in what order, either. Oy.

Anyway, am I even close?

[Dominae]

ducki, you've got the right idea. However, that starting location is a little difficult for learning how to set up pump cities. I could show you how I would do it, but I think you would just get confused at this point.

Try using the starting location from the first game you posted instead. It straightforwardly accomodates two pumps. See if you can figure out how, then look at my screenshot for the solution.

By the way, this is only hard now that you're learning it. Once you get used to setting up pumps, it's actually quite fun figuring out the best way to do it in each game.


Dominae

[ducki]

Originally posted by Dominae
ducki, you've got the right idea. However, that starting location is a little difficult for learning how to set up pump cities. I could show you how I would do it, but I think you would just get confused at this point.

You mean more confused.

Try using the starting location from the first game you posted instead. It straightforwardly accomodates two pumps. See if you can figure out how, then look at my screenshot for the solution.

Brilliant!

By the way, this is only hard now that you're learning it. Once you get used to setting up pumps, it's actually quite fun figuring out the best way to do it in each game.
Dominae

Yeah, this is twisting my brain in knots, but I think I'm getting it.

Things I've noticed, as someone that didn't really "get it" before:
1. 4-turn settler-pump was misleading - actually, it was the interface that was misleading. The first two turns, it will say you have 5-turns to go if you're doing 7+7+8+8. Not that the interface knows what's going on, but it was a minor confusance(hehe, I love making up words).
2. This was tough even working with an example that I'd played before and had seen Dominae's screenshot. Without looking back at it until I'd formulated the improvement plan, I stared at my City Screen for about 20 minutes, counting this, adding that.
3. Holy mother of all that is holy, this is an UNREAL amount of micromanagement! Every time there's a pop growth or you squirt out a settler, you have to go back in and move that one guy off the Forest and back onto the Grapes, AND you need to move the guy from the Mined Bonus Grass to the Mined Grass(well, you don't need to, but you're wasting shields). Add to that the fact that every 2 turns you have to move the luxury slider. Up one, wait, up one, wait, down two. Repeat. A lot. Forever, basically. We need better city governors.


The AI needs to learn to do this. I've never seen a stream of settlers I couldn't keep escorts attached to, but that's probably because I wasn't really paying attention to anything but figuring out the dadgum 4-turn settler-pump.


Boy, talk about powerful. I'm just sitting here grinning.
I get it, I get it, I GET IT!!!


I haven't figured out how to make 2-turn settlers pop out of Barcelona yet, since you lose a shield to waste/corruption, but now that I get the maths, I'm sure I'll see the light.

Thanks guys for your infinite patience in explaining and reexplaining this. I can't stop grinning, seriously.
I'd cackle, but my wife would ask questions, the dog would whine, and the baby might wake up, but just imagine a dark and stormy night with thunder and lightning and me, cackling from the center of a swirl of darkness.


Muwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!


Edit: This really deserves an article/post of its own and to be linked from Theseus' Must Read Threads thread. I'd really like to shake the hand of the mathematical whiz that came up with this. I'd also really like to see the AI given at least some idea how to do this sort of thing. If the AI could expand like this, well, I shudder to think.

Edit2: Ack! All my math is messed up when I switch to Monarchy. Hehe. Went to micromanage my "people" and couldn't get the numbers right. Teehee!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ducki
3. Holy mother of all that is holy, this is an UNREAL amount of micromanagement! Every time there's a pop growth or you squirt out a settler, you have to go back in and move that one guy off the Forest and back onto the Grapes, AND you need to move the guy from the Mined Bonus Grass to the Mined Grass(well, you don't need to, but you're wasting shields).

That's why it's better to do 6+8+8+8 in this case. Madrid starts at size 4, and has 5/10 Food in the box (with Granary). Then:

---

Turn 1: (size 4.5)

Base, 1 Shield
Irrigated Grassland Cattle, 1 Shield
Irrigated Wines, 0 Shields
Bonus Grassland, 2 Shields
Bonus Grassland, 2 Shields

Growth: +2 Shields from new Laborer automatically assigned to Forest

Total: 8 Shields

---

Turn 2: (size 5.0)

Same assignments as for Turn 1, so 6 Shields *plus*
Coast Fish, 0 Shields (but a couple of Commerce!)

Total: 6 Shields

---

Turn 3: (size 5.5)

Same assignments as for Turn 2, so 6 Shields

Growth: +2 Shields from new Laborer automatically assigned to Forest

Total: 8 Shields

---

Turn 4: (size 6.0):

Same assignments as for Turn 3, so 6 Shields *plus*
Mined Bonus Grassland, 2 Shields

Total: 8 Shields

---

Grand Total: 30 Shields

Thus the city grows to size 6.5 and completes a Settler, ending up at size 4.5 to start the process all over again. Notice that the only micromanagement that needs to be done is every other turn, when the city grows and the Governor places the new Laborer on the Forest. It's the stupid Governor that's responsible for all the micro! Then again, if the Governor did not place the new Laborer on the Forest tile, you would miss out on a bunch of Shields whenever the city grows.

You can also now see why it's nice to have a high-Commerce, zero-Shield tile, in order for all the math to work out just right.


Dominae

[ducki]

Ok, see, I was in the zone of understandment, and then you had to go throw in "half-pops". I'm going to have to let my brain work this out overnight - I know I saw more stuff about half-pops earlier in this thread, but my eyes had started to glaze over - that was before I got hit over the head with a pump.


-----------------
On a different note, while replaying this game to learn to pump settlers, I accidentally found a new-to-me exploit(at least I think it's an exploit, it may just be a feature for folks like me that forget to do stuff).
Capitol is due to finish build in 1 turn.
Town X will be inside pop-rush range in 1 turn.
Finish turn, Capitol pop-up appears.
Zoom to capitol, scroll to Town X.
Pop rush building.
Close City view.
Production cycle continues and when it reaches Town X, it says hey, you only had one turn to go, it's a new turn for you now, you're done.

You've shaved 1 turn off of a pop-rush build. Easy to be a cheap cheat, though handy for folks like me that can't remember to check every town on every turn.
--------------------

Edit: Now that I think of it, maybe your half-pops and the extra two shields on turn one are related to my exploit and the production cycle? Or maybe I'm just tired.
Say goodnight, Gracie.

[Mountain Sage]

Welcome to the club

[Harovan]

Originally posted by ducki
3. Holy mother of all that is holy, this is an UNREAL amount of micromanagement!

Welcome to the realm of successful emperor playing. The higher levels you play, the more you have to micromanage, and more so if you try to play builder games (as I usually do). Step up to demigod and expect twice or thrice as much micromanagement. You probably have the skills to do so, but you may lack the patience.

Try to find the level that provides you with the right mixture of challenge and fun, because that is why we are playing. Look at Arrian. He sticks with monarch even though his friends tease him and by his skills he's certainly able to play much higher. But monarch is his fun level. I mostly play emperor games and they are fun, at least until the industrial age. I have played around with demigod (have not finished a game yet) and I have won a few deity games, but I can say for certain, that by my standard they weren't fun at all. My fun level remains emperor. Now try to find yours.

[ducki]

@Sir Ralph - I'll probably play more Monarch games than Emperor, but I want to finish and win at Emperor just because. Especially now that I get the whole pump thing.

@Dominae - This has been bugging me since I went to bed last night.

Then again, if the Governor did not place the new Laborer on the Forest tile, you would miss out on a bunch of Shields whenever the city grows.

How does that work if I move the laborer to a 2-food tile when it grows? If I don't move him, I'm down to 4 fpt and won't grow in 2 turns. Or does the new laborer get put on forest, produce a food and 2 shields and then I move him? Doesn't that mess with the timing? Or does food happen at the end of the turn and shields at the beginning? I had micromanagement dreams last night trying to figure that one out. And I was doing so well.

[Arrian]

Ah, the mechanics of a +5fpt granary-fed settler/worker pump.

Dom's right, you will get to the point where you can just look at the screen and see +5 food sites.

I got that part down pretty easily. I needed Dom's help, though, with shield output. I had a shield-poor site that lacked forest, and was running a 5-turn settler pump (2 turns for workers though) until Dom straightened me out.

The micromanagement of a settler pump isn't actually that bad, particularly if you get the magical +5 food. For more impressive MM, see if you can dig up what Dominae did in the AU succession game with a +6fpt capable site (sharing a particular tile between 2 cities to get them both to average +5fpt). THAT is mircomanagement, my friend. And it is beyond what I'm willing to do in a SP environment.

-Arrian

[ducki]

Mmmm... so alternate them to be +4 and +6, then +6 and +4 each turn? Ouch.
Of course, even worse in getting this thing working(the original save, 4-t settler pump) was the insane amount of Civil Unrest because I was so intensely concentrating on getting it to work that I kept forgetting to bump, bump, drop the lux slider. Oh, for a second or third luxury.

[Arrian]

Yeah, remembering to adjust the lux slider up and down with city growth is my primary failing with settler pumps. I tend to do a few reloads of autosaves in the early stages (when a turn of civil disorder is really bad) to make up for my terrible memory/observation skills.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by ducki
How does that work if I move the laborer to a 2-food tile when it grows? If I don't move him, I'm down to 4 fpt and won't grow in 2 turns. Or does the new laborer get put on forest, produce a food and 2 shields and then I move him? Doesn't that mess with the timing? Or does food happen at the end of the turn and shields at the beginning?

Let's say you've got 15/20 Food in a city, and that city is producing +5 Food per turn. Then the following things happen the next turn:

0. Commerce summed up and allocated.
1. +5 Food added to the Food box (20/20 Food).
2. Food box empties (0/20 Food).
3. City grows one pop point.
4. City gets a new Laborer, due to #3.
5. City Governor assigns new Laborer to some tile according to its algorithm, let's say a Forest.
6. Shields from each Laborer summed up and added to production.
7. Production checked for completion.

(Steps #5 and #6 are what I called "Growth" in my post above.)

So, as you can see, when a city grows you get "free" Shields from the new tile it gets to work, but no Commerce or Food from that tile. In the early part of the game, this source of Shields is definitely non-trivial, accounting for 10-20% of most production items. In particular, it nets you 4 "free" Shields out of the 30 a Settler-pump needs to function.

How do you know where the Governor will assign the new Laborer in step #5? Good question. The best rule the Governor follows that I can think of would be: "Keep a balance between Food, Shields, and Commerce". You can easily "confirm" this for yourself by watching the AI in Debug mode for a while. What it means for Settler pumps is that whenever you have a big surplus of Food (say, +3 Food per turn or more), the Governor will try to balance this out by assigning a Laborer to a high-Shield and (usually) low-Food tile, like a Forest. If there's no Forest handy, a mined Plains or (worse) Hills will do in a pinch; of course, a mined Bonus Grassland will always be picked first, but those should be worked every turn. This is why I always leave a Forest untouched near my pump cities, if possible.


Dominae

[ducki]

Mmmm... free shields..... :drool:
This just keeps getting deeper and deeper. How did I get this far being this ignorant?

So if you can count of 4 free shields in your pump, then does that mean you could nab 4 extra commerce working the fish(in the original sav) every 4 turns?
If so, then you get 4 "free" shields every 4 turns AND 4 "free" gold every 4 turns.
Hmm.. +1s and +1g per turn sounds like a very powerful thing indeed, above and beyond the beauty of the pump.

Y'know what would be cool? A "lock this laborer" button. If you know you don't want your Irrigated Cow and Irrigated wines to EVER disappear as part of a settler, it'd be nice to force the governor AI to leave my +5food alone.


This is, quite possibly, the coolest thing I've learned since figuring out GL generation, maybe even cooler than that. I can't thank you guys enough for continuously nudging me in the right direction. Muchas gracias!

[cloudtoground]

Good thread,

I finally understand the pump concept, too. Thanks!

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Dominae

Let's say you've got 15/20 Food in a city, and that city is producing +5 Food per turn. Then the following things happen the next turn:

0. Commerce summed up and allocated.
1. +5 Food added to the Food box (20/20 Food).
2. Food box empties (0/20 Food).
3. City grows one pop point.
4. City gets a new Laborer, due to #3.
5. City Governor assigns new Laborer to some tile according to its algorith, let's say a Forest.
6. Shields from each Laborer summed up and added to production.
7. Production checked for completion.

(Steps #5 and #6 are what I called "Growth" in my post above.)

So, as you can see, when a city grows you get "free" Shields from the new tile it gets to work, but no Commerce or Food from that tile. In the early part of the game, this source of Shields is definitely non-trivial, accounting for 10-20% of most production items. In particular, it nets you 4 "free" Shields out of the 30 a Settler-pump needs to function.

How do you know where the Governor will assign the new Laborer in step #5? Good question. The best rule the Governor follows that I can think of would be: "Keep a balance between Food, Shields, and Commerce". You can easily "confirm" this for yourself by watching the AI in Debug mode for a while. What it means for Settler pumps is that whenever you have a big surplus of Food (say, +3 Food per turn or more), the Governor will try to balance this out by assigning a Laborer to a high-Shield and (usually) low-Food tile, like a Forest. If there's no Forest handy, a mined Plains or (worse) Hills will do in a pinch; of course, a mined Bonus Grassland will always be picked first, but those should be worked every turn. This is why I always leave a Forest untouched near my pump cities, if possible.

Dominae

By the way, this information should definitely be put in an easy-to-access location (like the topped "must read" threads) if it's not already.

It's something that many people don't know, and even those of us who do know it can forget or get confused.

-Arrian

[ducki]

I was actually thinking about gathering all the elder wisdom here and compiling it in one big text chunk for easy access, though I'm a notorious slacker and can't be trusted to actually get it to "release" status.

I'll see what I can do, because the whole series of explanations is, I agree, definitely worthy of a Must Read Mention.

[ducki]

Oh, I also meant to mention one other thing earlier...
Dom, now I understand why Ag is so overpowered, but I think there's two flavors of Ag power - Extra Heavy Duty, for those that recognise and can implement a 4-turn settler pump, and Simply Strong, for those that don't or are just not willing to work that hard.

But your reasons are more clear to me now, I think. I can't wait to try this with an Ag civ. Muwahahahahaha! But that'll have to wait until I can reproduce this on a different map without so much coaching. Mmm... practice....

[ducki]

Boy, I hate to post 3 times in a row, but it is my thread, so here's a math question about this 4-turn pump.

+5 fpt + Granary = growth every 2 turns

growth every 2 turns = 2 "extra" shields every two turns

Settler costs 30 shields IIRC.
My pump has +7+7+8+8 = 30
When a) micromanaged and b)given 4 free shields, shouldn't +6+6+7+7 = 30?

IOW, if you have that forest and the governor gives you 2 shields just for growing, do you really need to produce 30 shields from your micromanaged tiles or wouldn't 26 work just as well?

[Rhothaerill]

You won't necessarily get two shields all the time so don't count on it. It depends on the autoallocation of the next citizen. You can "lead" the computer to autoallocating to the correct tile, but not always. Basically I try to set up 4 turn settler pumps with 28 definite shields not 26, that way the extra shields from city growth don't come up short.

[Dominae]

Rhoth, I've never seen the Governor select a low-Shield tile over a high-Shield one when there was a high Food surplus in the city. To my knowledge no one has ever written down the rule governing (ha!) its behaviour, but even without it I'm confident I know where that extra Laborer will end up. While you're learning there's nothing "wrong" with reloading the odd turn here and there, as Arrian suggests. You can give yourself a little insurance by counting up to 32-34 Shields for every Settler, but those are extra Shields that another city could be using (say, to pump out Warriors).

ducki, I count the "free" Shields from city growth in my calculation up to 30, but you can equivalently count up to 26 "worked" Shields, confident that you'll get those extra 4 for "free". It's not really all that important, as long as you hit the 30-Shield mark in 4 turns (and not one Shield over!).


Dominae

[Aeson]

It will always give you the highest shield production tile that will allow it to stay at +2 food per turn or more. The main thing to watch out for is overlap on the production tile with an earlier city in the queue, as then it could grow and take the production tile first.

When a) micromanaged and b)given 4 free shields, shouldn't +6+6+7+7 = 30?

Most my Settler factories end up as 6,8,7,9 cities (not always in that order though).

[ducki]

I guess I was unclear in that I was speaking of "intentionally worked" tiles. My pump is "intentionally" generating 7+7+8+8.
If I can count on those mystery shields, I can do 6+6+7+7 (again, intentionally worked shields) and use a tile that has more commerce.

At least that's how I'm understanding it. And yes, I see that depending on the "free" 4 shields could probably be considered a risky policy.
I'm just still trying to make sure I fully understand it and Dom's comment about working the forest confused me for a minute, but she cleared it up.

It seems a bit "dodgy" getting free shields, but in a pinch it could be helpful knowledge. I hadn't even conisdered sharing the tile, I was thinking more along the lines of extra commerce or being able to create a pump with less shieldy tiles, but that's yet another good point, Dom.

Aeson: Is 6+8+7+9 from size 4-6 or some other size range? I'm just trying to picture what terrain could give me +5 fpt and +9 shields... maybe something with mined iron on a hill? Or is that knocked down to 2 shields under despotism?
(Edit: Nevermind, I'm a dummy. I was forgetting the shield from the city tile. I always forget that one.)
Grr, I'm gonna have to find a good chart or make a little app so I don't have to keep asking such newbish questions. You'd think I'd memorize this stuff by now.

Roth: You're still counting on free shields, right? You're just not counting on them from both pop growths, only one of the two, correct?

[Aeson]

Aeson: Is 6+8+7+9 from size 4-6 or some other size range? I'm just trying to picture what terrain could give me +5 fpt and +9 shields... maybe something with mined iron on a hill?

I like to use size 5-7 most of the time when possible (river, versions which don't empty the granary at size 7). Normally the river tiles allow the city to stay productive with the same Luxury rate as the non-river cities. In the capitol, you can use 5 (+ the city) tiles of 1 production, then add the 2 production tile, then 6 (+ the city) tiles of 1 production, add the 2 production tile again. Substitute 2 production tiles as needed due to low production tiles (Wheat) or corruption. Especially useful for those FP and Forest/Hills/Plains starts where 2.2 tiles are scarce.

The larger the city, the more 2.2 you can pass on to other purposes or do without. The first Settler is a couple turns slower though, and so the first couple Settlers should probably be ASAP. Then build up pop during a Barracks, Temple, or unit build, and continue on.