Ducki Does C3C at Emperor

[Aeson]

Oh, did get a Settler from a hut, but disbanded it because it would screw up the expansion comparison. Otherwise I could have been ahead of 'normal' expansion even while pushing so hard for the Pyramids.

[ducki]

What I've gotten a bit better with is the method of shutting off the pump. I now try to remember to spit out 5 extra workers so I can immediately boost the city to size12. The workers fix up the terrain (maximizing production) and then join the city.

Jeeze, yet another elegant technique I need to tatoo on my forearm. Brilliant. Note to self. Remember this.

[DrSpike]

Ok, I'm intrigued. Let's use a 'representative' pyramids opening as a point for comparison. For me that probably means kicking a settler asap, using the capital, and kicking settlers/workers as much as is possible from the second and future cities, with some doing units. Pyramids arrives in 1250BC say, which is safeish even on emperor. Where's the break even point for expansion as compared to a granary first opening for standard terrain? Mostly I would conclude that it's too far away, and that I can expand sufficiently faster (because if the expansion was equal obviously all those free granaries in the long term are a big plus) to mean that the pyramids opening is not the best option. Usually I'd build a limited number of granaries early on (standard/large maps), and add some in other cities later on to aid growth from 6 to 12. Of course this means I spend more than 400 shields, but 60 shields much later on in the game is a far smaller price.

In my view the opening we were discussing (the cows on plains) the nice start increases the relative strength of the granary opening over the pyramids one, pushing the break even point much too far away. I would usually only seriously consider pyramids openings with no food bonus and nice production. Even then there can be other things that would make me not built them.

If you can post the 4000BC save MS, I'd appreciate it.

[Arrian]

You don't think it really hampered your REX, Aeson?

Did you really go granary-settler-pyramids, with no other builds in there (extra scouts, warriors)? And you finished with the city at size7.

So the build probably cost you... 2 settlers?

Come to think of it, maybe the Pyramids makes the most sense in a high-shield start with no bonus food. That way the opportunity cost of not using your capital to build settlers and/or workers while it builds the Pyramids is lower.

-Arrian

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Arrian
Come to think of it, maybe the Pyramids makes the most sense in a high-shield start with no bonus food. That way the opportunity cost of not using your capital to build settlers and/or workers while it builds the Pyramids is lower.

-Arrian

Exactly! Nice cross post. This is the key to why I agreed with you earlier about not using that start to build the pyramids. If it was tried at all it should be not in the capital but at another site that you can bump up to speed with pop from the capital.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
I'm feeling my way through this. I'd like to see if I can pull of building the Pyramids while still doing a reasonable REX, and figure out the best way of doing that. Clearly I haven't thrown enough resources at the wonder city, and that has hurt me. I will try more, fear not.

I fear not.

If you're really serious about getting the Pyramids, your early REX and military development will definitely suffer. You cannot do all two or three of these things at the same time and expect to be competitive in each. Building the Pyramids requires a big commitment.

Might I suggest you try some OCC games? I know you're not a fan, but that's the best way to learn how to focus all resources toward an early Wonder or three. That's where I learned that a Granary is useful even if you're not planning to REX.


Dominae

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Come to think of it, maybe the Pyramids makes the most sense in a high-shield start with no bonus food. That way the opportunity cost of not using your capital to build settlers and/or workers while it builds the Pyramids is lower.

With no bonus Food, you do not get Workers as fast, which means you improve tiles more slowly, which means the date at which you join Workers for a pop boom is pushed back. High Food is great for REXing, but it's also good for building Wonders. It's good for pretty much everything.


Dominae

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Dominae

I fear not.

Well Arrian's point is about how to minimise the damage to his expansion........the key to justifying the pyramids opening always depends on this. Yes expansion will suffer early on, but he just wants a 'reasonable' expansion in conjunction with the long term pyramids boost. Perfectly reasonable point for him to make IMO.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Dominae


With no bonus Food, you do not get Workers as fast, which means you improve tiles more slowly, which means the date at which you join Workers for a pop boom is pushed back. High Food is great for REXing, but it's also good for building Wonders. It's good for pretty much everything.


Dominae

Yeah it's great for building wonders, but the more important point was the one I made earlier in response to you, and Arrian and myself just made in crossposting: the better start means the opportunity cost of building the wonder is much higher. Sorry to keep siding with Arrian here but his intuition is sound in this case IMO.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Arrian
You don't think it really hampered your REX, Aeson?

It slowed down the max possible REX (at least pre-1350BC... after that it would have boomed). Relatively though, if I had instead used my capitol as a military production city, as many players would, and had the second city as my pump (could have built a +4 or +3 city with it), then I'm not really slowing down expansion much at all. I'm making myself weaker militarily.

The Granary did slow things down though. The 60 shields that went into it would have let me build the Pyramids close to the same time without the faster growth. Still a slight advantage to the Granary there, but when you factor in the second city being built earlier, it swings in favor of no Granary. The second city should have been up and running sooner, and even if it then needed to add a worker or two back to the capitol, it still would have been ahead of where I was.

Did you really go granary-settler-pyramids, with no other builds in there (extra scouts, warriors)? And you finished with the city at size7.

No, I built a Warrior first, just figured that was a given. With the Scout it was pretty decent for exploration, contact, and the Warrior close to home was able to deal with barb problems (the nice AI helped out in that regard too ). As a non-expansionist would probably want another Warrior in there somewhere, but then everything else would likely be easier considering I disbanded a big part of the Expansionist's edge.

[Aeson]

I think the opportunity cost of building the Pyramids favors high food starts. You just don't build the Pyramids in the high food cities.

The Pyramids shouldn't affect your expansion much, it should affect your military early on quite a bit (that's ~40 Warriors you just built there).

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Dominae


It's possible that the AI rushed the Pyramids with an SGL. That is definitely a weakness of the early-Wonder gambit. SGLs should not appear before Literature.


Dominae

This is so true. If you get Philosophy first and get an SGL from it or the free tech, the game is ruined.

I would like to see it so none could be allowed from ancient tech.

[Arrian]

A couple of questions:

1) If playing a religious civ, would you consider building a temple in the city first to help keep it happy? I'm sure getting to a juicy tile via border expansion would effect the answer, but let's ignore that for now.

2) When building the Pyramids in your 2nd city, would you found it and immediately start the wonder, or would you punch out a couple of warriors first (for MP and basic defense)?

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by vmxa1

This is so true. If you get Philosophy first and get an SGL from it or the free tech, the game is ruined.

I would like to see it so none could be allowed from ancient tech.

As with most things of this nature, I'd like to have it be an option at game start, like culture flips now are. Maybe have three options: 1) as it is now, 2) No SGLs in the ancient era; 3) No SGLs.

The best luck I've seen lately with them was a game my gf was playing. I convinced her to research Code of Laws first, then Philo, and take Republic as the bonus tech. She did, and got a SGL from Republic. BAM, revolution right there, Pyramids rushed. They completed in anarchy.

Game, set, match, I know. At least for really good players. For not-so-good players, it can be a lot of fun to get a boost like that and feel the power. And then there is me, who always wants to feel the power.

-Arrian

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Aeson
I think the opportunity cost of building the Pyramids favors high food starts. You just don't build the Pyramids in the high food cities.

Sure. I mentioned that several times.

Originally posted by Doc

If it was tried at all it should be not in the capital but at another site that you can bump up to speed with pop from the capital.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Arrian
As with most things of this nature, I'd like to have it be an option at game start, like culture flips now are. Maybe have three options: 1) as it is now, 2) No SGLs in the ancient era; 3) No SGLs.

Hmm...since SGLs are so rare, and since you can have more than one of them (yeah, right, all the time!), how about 4) No rushing of ancient-era wonders?

[Hermann the Lombard]

HtL on Emperor from Ducki’s Easy Pump Start

OK, I’ve had trouble getting the hang of pumps, so I thought I’d give this a go and get some feedback on what I did with it, especially sequencing.

4000 – Build on the spot, take grass cow for 5t growth&warrior, worker to that tile for road, then decide between the 2nd grass cow and a riverplain cow. Start Bronze toward Gal Swords (though you call ‘em “gals” to their tattooed faces!).
3800 – Road done. Mine, irrigate, or move? Irrigate gives +5fpt, so do it.
3750 – 1st Warrior heads north. Must use slider to prevent instariot. 2nd warrior should be MP?
3700 – Tripped over Ducki’s “Slider Slack” as 10% lux is OK if 80% tech, but not if 90% tech.
3600 – Warrior 2, MP, cow is irrigated (darn muddy hooves), move to start road to 2nd city. Got Warrior Code from the hut! Shock and disbelief!
3500 – Pop=3, on track, growth&settler in 4t. 70/10, 1ea Hap/Con/Un, Bronze 15t, +0gpt. Idiot advisor says Entremont is growing slowly! Get out there and breed if you think it’s slow!
3400 – Road ready, so now road on river cow.
3350 – First Settler…now what? Warrior, I think, then maybe Granary. We must be in the Fertile Crescent as exploring warrior finds two plains/wheat about 10 tiles NW.
3250 – Built Alesia (NE,NE), start Warrior, want workers.
3200 – Road on river cow, now 2nd grass cow. Need that commerce at Pop=3.
3150 – 3rd Warrior will scout, start worker.
3100 – Sumerian Enkidu pops out of nowhere and scares the devil out of the worker. We give Burial and WC for Masonry (as we’re only 3t from Bronze anyway). Entre builds worker, can grow and gen another in 3t. Seems like a good idea.
3000 – Alesia Warrior, starts another (1 explorer, 1 MP). Road on 2nd grass cow; I’m tempted to mine it. Probably best to gen more shields, but how? Mine grass or irrigate plains? More commerce along the river. If I irrigate the 2nd grass cow, I’ll have more food than I need for Entre, more than needed for a 4-turn pump, but I could support a couple of forests. Also, irrigation is faster than mining, and initially I can just build roads for the commerce. I need to irrigate both plains cows to give Alesia +5fpt. Already +5 for Entre, so leave 2nd grass cow merely roaded for now. Both plains cows already roaded.
2950 – Bronze! Now Iron or Alpha? Iron, hoping to trade for Alpha and Wheel. Start research at 80/10 and 30t.
2900 – Entre growth and worker and needs one more shield for 4-turn worker pump. Alesia warrior/explorer, start Archer, growth in 7t due to lack of irrigation, so Entre WILL generate 4th worker. [Ack! I wish the default was NOT to stop work when checking the progress of a worker!]
2800 – Alesia is now a 2-turn worker pump. Let’s let it grow a bit for more commerce…wait a minute, it’s 4 turns to grow! Starting to think about cities 3 & 4, one down river from Alesia for commerce, shields, and sugar, and one to use the other cow and bring in Silks (and maybe cramp Sumer a little). Fortunately, the two Bulgars did not attack my eastern explorer. I should explore and NOT attack, but move into cover. Warrior 1 finally finds a Sumerian border.
2750 – 4th worker and time to set up the Settler pump, but what infra do I need? Granary, certainly, but temple too?
2710 – 2 workers move to start another plains/river tile, to irrigate and then build a road. I guess I do need the Temple for the pump, so maybe kick a settler out of Alesia in the meantime.
2630 – 2nd western explorer survives a Harappan ambush only because the 2nd one didn’t attack. Eastern explorer spots Persians from a mountain. We are +1 tech (Pottery) and they have diddly to offer.
2590 – 1st warrior reaches Land’s End beyond Sumer.
2550 – Entre growth&temple in 3t; Alesia growth&settler in 2.
2470 – Alesia Settler, starts Temple. Watch Enkidu thoughtfully kill the 2nd last barb in a village, leaving the last for me…barely. Survived with 1hp and 25gp, doubling my treasury. Hmm…maybe I have too many workers (Heresy!) as developed tiles are going unworked while military and expansion roads are lagging. Now cut road through forest NE Alesia…no, cut the forest first! 5spt and temple in 6, chop will complete in 4t without waste. Found wine in the far east, beyond that Bulgar village.
2430 – Entremont finishes Temple, now Pop=4. Awkward: will grow in 5 but granary in 8 and will need lux to avoid riot.
2350 – Build Lugdunum north of silks, already with road to the other cities. Eastern warrior attacks a lone barb…and dies without even nicking the barb. Next time hold the narrow end of the club. Pottery+22gp to Persians for Alpha, Iron due in 8t. Alesia finishes wooden temple…and I would have been one shield short if I didn’t manually shift work to a different forest.
2270 – Ugh. We need 40% lux to prevent riot when Entre grows! Moves Iron from 6t back to 8t, and now -2gpt.
2230 – Entre to Pop 5, Alesia to Pop 3.
2190 – Lug Warrior (warriors are heavy!). Is this a Barracks City or a Wonder City? Either way, build temple to keep the peons happy.
2150 – Entre finishes Granary and (finally!) starts a Settler. Now growth in 3 and Settler in 4 at Pop 5, so shift next turn for timing. Alesia’s culture expands. Hmm…Sumerian settler heading east; can we forestall?
2110 – We have Silks! Can back off on the lux rate to 20% with tech at 70% and Iron in 2t rather than 3t. MM Entre for growth&settler in 3. Alesia is growth&granary in 6.
2070 – Lug to Pop2. One of our regular warriors eyes an elite Enkidu; most impressive! [Ah, they founded Kish 5 west of Lug, so no cramping yet.]
2030 – Iron Working, and there’s iron on the mountain 5 NW of Entre, basically about two cities out (though in outer radius of next planned city, 3 W Entre. Settler in 1t and road ready JIT. One warrior exploring between the city of Sumer and the sea.
1990 – Entre Settler, start Settler, first try at 4-turn Settler. Start using irrigated grass cow+irr plains cow+irr plains+forest=5fpt,7spt, growth in 2, settler in 5. Can reduce lux rate to zero until Entre grows to 5. Tech 70, Writing 19, +1gpt (“My God how the money rolls in!”)
1950 – Built Canulodunum 3W Entre, classic 2f/2s start. Can get extra shields by mining bonus grass.
1910 – Entre Pop=5, Lux 10%, MM from forest to irr plains, now 2t growth&settler for 4-turn settler! Yay!
1870 – Alesia finishes Granary. Do I build a Curragh before a Worker? Pump. Warrior scores 25gp from village beyond Sumer, but is now “trapped” by Sumerian territory.
1830 – Entre finishes 4-turn Settler. “Do it again!” Already 4t for growth&settler. No, 4/4 is no good! We need to grow to 6, not to 5. MM back to 5f/7s. Send this Settler NW to Iron/Silk/River site. Lug starts Palace as prebuild, very unlikely to get Pyramids at this stage (or Colossus), but likely another Wonder will be available before Palace would be complete. Lug is only 6spt so far, and not on a river; can grow it with workers. Any point?
1750 – MM Entre at Pop5. Alesia still waits to start worker pump as only Pop4. Camul builds warrior, starts Barracks.
1725 – Sumer takes Iron for Writing+20gp (we were still 8t to Writing); Iron to Xerxes for 100gp. Philo next but best I can do is 34t@-5gpt (not sustainable), or 40t@-3gpt, 47t@-1, or 50t@+10. So either 50t or 40t; I want it faster so 40t which will improve.
1700 – Entre Settler, eastbound. Built Richborough 3 NW Camul, next to Iron.
1675 – Alesia builds Archer, starts 2-turn worker pump. Philo now 25t@-3gpt.
1650 – Built Verulamium NE,NE,N of Alesia, on the other side of the river next to the two sugar. Oh, crud. Looked away for a moment and blipped my Settler Pump; now not enough shields.
1625 – Three cities grow and Alesia finishes worker.
1575 – Entre Settler, Alesia Worker. Tempted to stretch NW to wheat for next city; indefensible, though.
1525 – Alesia Worker
1500 – Not enough troops! Switch Veru from Temple to Warrior (for upgrade). Rush temple in Rich to push borders (cramping Sumer and preparing to link with future Wheat city).
1475 – A good year: 4-turn Settler, 2-turn Worker, rushed Temple. Archer kills barb NE Rich. Odd to be so far in with all Regulars and not even a Veteran.
1450 – Veru Warrior, start Barracks.
1425 – Road reaches Rich; build Gergovia in crook of coast NW of Entre.
1400 – We have Iron! Can start building Gal Swords. Settler, Worker, Camul Temple and Pop 3. Rich. Culture expands. Build Augustodurum at head of the bay NW of Rich.
1375 – Settler, Worker. Where should the next city go? Coast East of Kish? Marginal value there as we’ll probably take Kish in due course. 3 N of Iron Mountain looks good. We need TROOPS for defense against neighbors and barbs, and to grow to the Wine NE of Veru.

Seems like my best REX since about the time of Vel’s Part 3, but surely I could have done better. Dominae’s question, “how many workers?” is a key to this. Also, if Sumer attacks right now I’ll be stretched very thinly.

One specific question: should I have mined the outer grassland cow? That seemed to work awkwardly.

[Aeson]

1) If playing a religious civ, would you consider building a temple in the city first to help keep it happy? I'm sure getting to a juicy tile via border expansion would effect the answer, but let's ignore that for now.

Yes, but only to get the border expansion and the required tiles. If those can be claimed soon enough by other means, I'd skip the Temple unless you are really familiar with when you will finish the Pyramids and when the AI will.

I built a Temple before the Pyramids in that game posted by Jeem. Normally I'd do the border expansion by placing other cities, but in this case they would have been cities off the river and therefore slow everything. down.

I don't think the Lux rate should factor in as the main reason for a Temple though.

2) When building the Pyramids in your 2nd city, would you found it and immediately start the wonder, or would you punch out a couple of warriors first (for MP and basic defense)?

Depends on the difficulty, barb settings (if unknown assume the worst), production available, and how secure you feel running low military early in the game.

Easiest way to figure it is to shoot for a certain date. Play several games and get familiar with how many turns it takes with various combinations of tiles. I like to shoot for 1200BC on Emperor, which gives around 60 shields (think of a pop point as ~20 shields) you can put into something else first with decent terrain. Probably could get away with more, but every turn later you risk being beat that much more. Monarch I think you can delay longer, maybe 90-120 shields. Could even get out a Settler from city 2 I think.

--------------

(I misspoke about not getting beat to the Pyramids, meant by the AI. We got beat to the Pyramids in the PTWDG partly due to my not guessing right what Lego would do.)

[Arrian]

And partly because we did several things with Hurricane BEFORE we decided to try for the Pyramids. I think that if we had gone for it right off the bat, we would have gotten it. *sigh*

-Arrian

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Doc

If you can post the 4000BC save MS, I'd appreciate it.

I did it, it's on page 12 of this thread, just before the screenshot.
But be careful, this is not on Emperor level. This is why I explained to Ducki that I threadjacked his Emperor thread. I didn't want to create a new one only for this.

I don't have any particular difficulty with this game so far , except the 'usual stuff', but I'm running the same game with 3 parallel versions about 500 years behind the main one, as not to feel tempted to cheat.
I am trying alternate possibilities as the best way to improve my skills and explore 'ifs'.
This is why your help would be more than appreciated.

[DrSpike]

Doh! I only saw the screenshot in the flurry of posts.

To be honest I thought it was an emperor game, and I'd prefer to test on that level, though I might take a peek at yours also.

Btw I support most unquestionably replaying out your starts. Yeah it's boring sometimes to play the same map, but it's the only way to get an adequate enough control to assess the merits of different strategies. When Civ3 came out (and C3C with stuff added) I played many starts, some of them 3 or 4 times.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Arrian
And partly because we did several things with Hurricane BEFORE we decided to try for the Pyramids. I think that if we had gone for it right off the bat, we would have gotten it. *sigh*

-Arrian

The few units we built in Hurricane saved our butts in the Vox war, though. Otherwise we'd have at least lost cities before the tide turns (if it turns). It was already very close to this outcome even with these units.

[Arrian]

Maybe. I don't remember how many units we actually built in Hurricane.

If the War Chariot that generated our leader was from Hurricane, I concede the argument completely.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

The chance is big, that it was. It was our first barracks and for pretty long our only one. Although I don't remember it exactly, the WC may as well have been built in Bolderberg. But definitely it was Hurricane, where we built our first few Spearmen, which got upgraded to Pikemen after the aggression. Try this with Warriors .

[Aeson]

The flip side is that at the end of the builld instead of the beginning we could have gotten just as many shields into units. Not sure exactly when we were going to finish, and how shield wastage early/late would have put us ahead/behind.

I'm pretty sure we got out a unit or two after the Wonder build before Vox could attack, so it should have been close to even either way (units-wonder or wonder-units)

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Doc

Btw I support most unquestionably replaying out your starts. Yeah it's boring sometimes to play the same map, but it's the only way to get an adequate enough control to assess the merits of different strategies. When Civ3 came out (and C3C with stuff added) I played many starts, some of them 3 or 4 times.

It's the only way of understanding and seeing the consequences of some strategic (and more mundanes) decisions.
As long as you don't mix up the original game with the 'parallel worlds'...

Btw, you could play the first 2'000 years or so and set up the settler pumps. Even on that level, there is not much difference with Emperor, yet.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Aeson
The flip side is that at the end of the builld instead of the beginning we could have gotten just as many shields into units. Not sure exactly when we were going to finish, and how shield wastage early/late would have put us ahead/behind.

I'm pretty sure we got out a unit or two after the Wonder build before Vox could attack, so it should have been close to even either way (units-wonder or wonder-units)

Since the Pyramids would have triggered our GA, we actually would have gotten more units out... well, I guess not really, same number but w/o need to upgrade (Hurricane hit 30spt during our GA, which meant 1-turn pikes, so instead of building a spear or two on the front end, and upgrading those to pikes, we would have been building pikemen at the back end, with no need to upgrade. No difference in numbers, though).

But that would've meant no Great Lighthouse, of course. I'll take that trade, but the GL definitely helped our counterattack.

-Arrian