Armchair Civ
Monday, January 08, 2007
Lots of decisions
10 turns (0200 BC - 0050 AD)
This was an interesting set of turns. While we're still in the economic recovery phase, the computer's aggressive expansion forced me into expanding further before I really wanted to. Louis sent a couple warriors to hang out around the barb city, while Ramses actually had the gall to try to take it over with a single chariot. I wasn't about to allow anyone to grab a chunk of real estate right dead center in the middle of our civ, so I sent four axemen up there and took it over. I also had my eye on that coastline area to the east. I didn't want Ramses moving up there, so I settled a spot over there with the hopes of closing off the north. After that eastern coastline city's cultural border grows, if you see Ramses trying to send a settler up there, you should go to the diplomacy screen and close borders with him to block it off.
The ecomonic recover was going well, but as you can see, settling two additional cities has put us back in the hole again. During my set of turns, I mostly cranked out more workers (to accelerate our economic recovery) and more axemen (to get us at a respectable power level). I attacked that barb that was camping out that tribal village, and we were really fortunate with the result (free Monarchy tech). I didn't institute Hereditary Rule yet, but if you find any of our cities starting to become pissed off with that red anger mark, I'd recommend getting it online. Other than the free Monarchy, I finished off Masonry and got started on Code Of Laws. Once we learn that, we should probably rush build courthouses all over the place using slavery. I'm also a little concerned about our power level, as we have some fairly aggressive civs floating around near us. I'm trying to slowly march our axemen out to the peripheral cities to beef up the border and move the warriors to the internal and coastlline cities just to keep them happy, but numbers wise, we're maybe a little too far behind on the power graph, which can lead to random spontaneous attacks. York was our best production city, so I threw up a barracks there with the intent of making that our main military facility.
When I started my turns, I noticed you had a bunch of libraries cooking all over the place, which got me thinking about the best way to increase our science. While at first it doesn't make a lot of sense, I think the best way to fix our science rate is to build granaries instead of libraries. Kind of counter intuitive at first, but if you consider that the majority of our cities were only outputting around 1 beaker a turn and that libraries only give you a 25% increase in science, you're only getting an additional 0.25 beakers per turn with a library. If you build granaries first, you're increasing the population growth rate in the city, allowing it to work more tiles more quickly. When you consider the majority of those extra tiles will be cottages, you can see how that's a good way to ramp up our economy, with a lot of it getting siphoned off to science due to the slider. Granaries also give you added ability to crack the slavery whip and get key buildings (like courthouses in the future) built faster. I am a fan of the early library in Canterbury though, as that's a key border city that has to fight a culture battle with two different civs.
I'll also talk about cottages and terrain, with I guess the main point being that grasslands rule and plains generally suck. Also gives me an excuse to post some pictures.
So here's a picture of Hastings with just the center tile being worked:
Sorry if this is too basic, but I just wanted to make sure everything made sense. Note the top bar showing the food generated (2) and food used (4). Also note our population of 2. Whenever you first build a city, you automatically get a population of 1, meaning you get to work two tiles automatically, the center tile (which you always get for free with no food requirement) and an additional tile of your choice. As you can see in Hastings, we have a population of 2. Every 1 population in a city requires 2 food, explaining our total food requirement of 4 shown in the pic. Our food generated is 2, explained by the single center tile being worked. We're currently in a starvation condition, but the only reason that's the case is because I'm not working all the possible tiles soley for example's sake.
Hastings with two plains (brownish squares) being worked:
As I said before, for every 1 population, you get to work a tile in addition to the center one. So in this case, we get to work three tiles total. Here, I've chosen to work two additional plains. Note the growth bar. We have a requirement of 4 food due to having a population of 2, but we're only generating 4 food (2 from center tile and 1 each from the two plains). When your food generated does not exceed your food consumed, you're city can no longer grow and increase population. This is why plains are generally bad spots for cottage spamming. If you think about it, the only way your city can grow is if you're averaging about 2 food produced per tile worked. Cottaged plains only give you 1 food, meaning you have to have other tiles generating more than 2 food to compensate.
Hastings with two grasslands (green squares) being worked:
Here, you'll notice that every of the three tiles is generating 2 food, giving us 6 total food produced, exceeding the requirement of 4, and thus allowing for population growth. This is why when you're scoping out terrain, you want to be on the lookout for food rich resources and grasslands, because they have good growth potential. Areas with lots of plains and few food resources are going to have trouble maintaining growth. Fortunately, Hastings does have the one cow square generating 4 food that we can work, but this can only compensate for three food poor plains before the city stagnates. Eventually, if we want to continue growth, we're going to have to build some farms. While this helps, it isn't a great solution, because that will only get us to the point where the plains are breaking even at 2 food.
So what was the point of all that? Whenever possible, we should be building cottages on grasslands instead of plains. Doing so allows us to work the cottaged tiles, while still maintaining growth. One other point to make which you might be aware of already, is to preferentially build cottages on tiles next to fresh water sources as opposed to landlocked tiles or sea bordering tiles. Tiles next to fresh water generate one free commerce, as you can see in the pics above. For a financial civ like ours, it's even a bigger deal. Financial trait generates an extra free commerce from tiles already generating two. So that means while financial, whenever you build a cottage on a tile next to a river, you are accelerating from 1 to 3 commerce immediately.
Alright, almost done. Here's what I have in mind for future settlements. Let me know if you have any other opinions or want to slow down land growth.
I was all prepared to settle the red spot where the warrior is standing during my turns, but the settler didn't get there in time. Settling this site right now is questionable. It's going to give us more economic burden, but it really is a nice spot, as it has six riverside grasslands available to it fully expanded. If we wait too long, that new Ragnar city to the west is going to grow and prevent us from settling there, causing us to adjust postion a little. I'll leave it up to you whether you want to settle the dot now, or if you want to wait a little a bit and just have the settler chill over there for a while.
I think I may have made a mistake sending the settler out over to the west in that first pic, because the spot marked here has Cash Money written all over it. A dye resource and ten riverside grasslands means Scrooge McDuck potential. Not totally perfect as it could really use a food resource, but I would hate to lose this site to the computer. So I guess another option you have is to move that settler down south and settle here instead, though we could risk delaying it and making a new settler.
This is just a site for the distant future that we want to protect from Ramses. Have fun.
This was an interesting set of turns. While we're still in the economic recovery phase, the computer's aggressive expansion forced me into expanding further before I really wanted to. Louis sent a couple warriors to hang out around the barb city, while Ramses actually had the gall to try to take it over with a single chariot. I wasn't about to allow anyone to grab a chunk of real estate right dead center in the middle of our civ, so I sent four axemen up there and took it over. I also had my eye on that coastline area to the east. I didn't want Ramses moving up there, so I settled a spot over there with the hopes of closing off the north. After that eastern coastline city's cultural border grows, if you see Ramses trying to send a settler up there, you should go to the diplomacy screen and close borders with him to block it off.
The ecomonic recover was going well, but as you can see, settling two additional cities has put us back in the hole again. During my set of turns, I mostly cranked out more workers (to accelerate our economic recovery) and more axemen (to get us at a respectable power level). I attacked that barb that was camping out that tribal village, and we were really fortunate with the result (free Monarchy tech). I didn't institute Hereditary Rule yet, but if you find any of our cities starting to become pissed off with that red anger mark, I'd recommend getting it online. Other than the free Monarchy, I finished off Masonry and got started on Code Of Laws. Once we learn that, we should probably rush build courthouses all over the place using slavery. I'm also a little concerned about our power level, as we have some fairly aggressive civs floating around near us. I'm trying to slowly march our axemen out to the peripheral cities to beef up the border and move the warriors to the internal and coastlline cities just to keep them happy, but numbers wise, we're maybe a little too far behind on the power graph, which can lead to random spontaneous attacks. York was our best production city, so I threw up a barracks there with the intent of making that our main military facility.
When I started my turns, I noticed you had a bunch of libraries cooking all over the place, which got me thinking about the best way to increase our science. While at first it doesn't make a lot of sense, I think the best way to fix our science rate is to build granaries instead of libraries. Kind of counter intuitive at first, but if you consider that the majority of our cities were only outputting around 1 beaker a turn and that libraries only give you a 25% increase in science, you're only getting an additional 0.25 beakers per turn with a library. If you build granaries first, you're increasing the population growth rate in the city, allowing it to work more tiles more quickly. When you consider the majority of those extra tiles will be cottages, you can see how that's a good way to ramp up our economy, with a lot of it getting siphoned off to science due to the slider. Granaries also give you added ability to crack the slavery whip and get key buildings (like courthouses in the future) built faster. I am a fan of the early library in Canterbury though, as that's a key border city that has to fight a culture battle with two different civs.
I'll also talk about cottages and terrain, with I guess the main point being that grasslands rule and plains generally suck. Also gives me an excuse to post some pictures.
So here's a picture of Hastings with just the center tile being worked:
Sorry if this is too basic, but I just wanted to make sure everything made sense. Note the top bar showing the food generated (2) and food used (4). Also note our population of 2. Whenever you first build a city, you automatically get a population of 1, meaning you get to work two tiles automatically, the center tile (which you always get for free with no food requirement) and an additional tile of your choice. As you can see in Hastings, we have a population of 2. Every 1 population in a city requires 2 food, explaining our total food requirement of 4 shown in the pic. Our food generated is 2, explained by the single center tile being worked. We're currently in a starvation condition, but the only reason that's the case is because I'm not working all the possible tiles soley for example's sake.
Hastings with two plains (brownish squares) being worked:
As I said before, for every 1 population, you get to work a tile in addition to the center one. So in this case, we get to work three tiles total. Here, I've chosen to work two additional plains. Note the growth bar. We have a requirement of 4 food due to having a population of 2, but we're only generating 4 food (2 from center tile and 1 each from the two plains). When your food generated does not exceed your food consumed, you're city can no longer grow and increase population. This is why plains are generally bad spots for cottage spamming. If you think about it, the only way your city can grow is if you're averaging about 2 food produced per tile worked. Cottaged plains only give you 1 food, meaning you have to have other tiles generating more than 2 food to compensate.
Hastings with two grasslands (green squares) being worked:
Here, you'll notice that every of the three tiles is generating 2 food, giving us 6 total food produced, exceeding the requirement of 4, and thus allowing for population growth. This is why when you're scoping out terrain, you want to be on the lookout for food rich resources and grasslands, because they have good growth potential. Areas with lots of plains and few food resources are going to have trouble maintaining growth. Fortunately, Hastings does have the one cow square generating 4 food that we can work, but this can only compensate for three food poor plains before the city stagnates. Eventually, if we want to continue growth, we're going to have to build some farms. While this helps, it isn't a great solution, because that will only get us to the point where the plains are breaking even at 2 food.
So what was the point of all that? Whenever possible, we should be building cottages on grasslands instead of plains. Doing so allows us to work the cottaged tiles, while still maintaining growth. One other point to make which you might be aware of already, is to preferentially build cottages on tiles next to fresh water sources as opposed to landlocked tiles or sea bordering tiles. Tiles next to fresh water generate one free commerce, as you can see in the pics above. For a financial civ like ours, it's even a bigger deal. Financial trait generates an extra free commerce from tiles already generating two. So that means while financial, whenever you build a cottage on a tile next to a river, you are accelerating from 1 to 3 commerce immediately.
Alright, almost done. Here's what I have in mind for future settlements. Let me know if you have any other opinions or want to slow down land growth.
I was all prepared to settle the red spot where the warrior is standing during my turns, but the settler didn't get there in time. Settling this site right now is questionable. It's going to give us more economic burden, but it really is a nice spot, as it has six riverside grasslands available to it fully expanded. If we wait too long, that new Ragnar city to the west is going to grow and prevent us from settling there, causing us to adjust postion a little. I'll leave it up to you whether you want to settle the dot now, or if you want to wait a little a bit and just have the settler chill over there for a while.
I think I may have made a mistake sending the settler out over to the west in that first pic, because the spot marked here has Cash Money written all over it. A dye resource and ten riverside grasslands means Scrooge McDuck potential. Not totally perfect as it could really use a food resource, but I would hate to lose this site to the computer. So I guess another option you have is to move that settler down south and settle here instead, though we could risk delaying it and making a new settler.
This is just a site for the distant future that we want to protect from Ramses. Have fun.
