Ducki Does C3C at Emperor

[furrykef]

No problem. It was easy enough once I realized how simple it is. =^^=' I think I like the editor more every day, even though I rarely actually use it (this game consumes enough of my time without my having to go make a mod or scenario )...you can learn a lot from playing with it.

Though, I think I might toy with making a "tutorial" scenario that revolves around setting up Settler and Worker pumps. Unfortunately I don't see a way to do any kind of scripting, and the built-in victory conditions, while not inflexible, aren't really sufficient for this kind of thing. Hmm.

- Kef

[ducki]

I have another Emp. start with pump-friendly terrain.
With all the practice I'm doing on this, maybe we could just collect all the sav files and someone that's a better writer than me could give a play-by-play, maybe something like cracker at cfc did with the Opening Plays pages(I'm remembering the Russia floodplain one, where he compares the AI vs the human) though I'm sure there are other good examples.

Anyone that wants to do something like that is welcome to PM me their email and I can start saving any start that has a pump in it to zip and email. I wish I was a better writer/compiler. The Pump Explanation I was going to try to paraphrase from this thread just isn't coming out readable. Blargh.

[Demege]

Regarding the settler/worker pump and micromanagment. If you set the city governor to emphisise food production you wont have to micromanage the city, the pump will be self sufficient.

When the settler is built and the city loses 2 pop. the governor (without the food prod set) assign one of the workers in such a way that there is a balance between shields and food production.

With the food preference set, after the settler is built the governor will assign the workers in such a way as a player would set it, thus takin away the micromanagement necessity. Of course the workers must be happy .

Cheers

[Theseus]

Nice one! I never thought of that.

[Demege]

Actually the governor settings are usefull. When a city gains population the new worker will be added according to the governor preferences You set.

Its good to set shield production ephasis in those production citys whenever there will be a population boom the new worker will go to the squere with most shields. The same things apply to science citys you just set the governor to commerce.

It takes away a lot of micromanagement. You dont have to set the workers yourself everytime the citys gain population.

[Dominae]

I sounds to me like you're just replacing one form of micromanagement (Laborer re-assignment) with another (Governor settings). In any case, you do not get Food nor Commerce from the newly-worked tile when a city grows, so I prefer just leaving the Governor on Emphasize Production (or whatever it's called).

I have the admit, though, that it's been a while since I've played with the Governor. Perhaps there is a minimal micromanagement solution there to be found...


Dominae

[ducki]

That's good information to know, but in a fair number of the pumps I've practiced on, I actually have needed at least 2 of the 4 "free" shields the governor gives me by auto-assigning to the (usually a forest) 2-shield tile. Not always, so this tip is very handy, but quite often.

Thanks a lot! I'll have to start trying this out where I have an abundance of shields.

[Rellin]

Great thread, never truly understood the settler pump myself, but with all these great explanations I think I will have to go try it out myself.

[ducki]

I've got a new question for the pump-gurus:
When and how do you turn it off?
The first question is, I assume, map-dependent, but surely there are some Rules of Thumb. Example - I am on a random map that I think is Large and Continents. I've got somewhere between 12 and 20 towns/cities in one big "glob" around/near my capitol and one very far away(think the tip of South America from Chicago) town to get some Iron flowing. There's one Australia-like landmass way down there too, and two others I can see unsettled but haven't explored yet(just got galleys).
There's one settler going around an AI, but is it wise to "surround" the AI with towns?
Do I keep settling until I can't find plots any more, no matter how far-flung and non-contiguous my empire becomes or do I stop soon after the FP notification popup?

That's the when. Now the "How?" Once I'm ready to stem the flow, what then?
Do I turn it into a worker pump until I can't support any more units? Do I just turn it into a wonder city, let it grow and spend a fortune on lux?

I never foresaw this being a problem, but this random map size has me stymied, as well as still having lots of land to settle even after the "Let's build a FP" popup.

I realize with no screenshot/sav, you are flying by the seat of your pants, but I'm just looking for generalizations here, not hard, fast, game/map-specific advice. You will not be held accountable.

[Enriquillo]

When and how do you turn it off?

Ok, you don't turn it off untill you've filled all available land or until you've reached the optimal amount for corruption, whichever comes first. This depends on difficulty level mostly.

You turn it off by switching from food to shields after you've let it grow to a suitable size, limited by happiness, then switch to shields and build up your usual temple/library etc.
You might even want to mine that cow now

[Arrian]

Originally posted by ducki
I've got a new question for the pump-gurus:
When and how do you turn it off?

I usually turn mine off when I can no longer resist the urge to build things in that city (typically my capital). I reach that point around the time all the good city spots have been settled, and I get to thinking "what would I do with that next settler?"

The most efficient way of growing a city over size 6 is to add workers (because of the larger food box), but I'm not enough of a MM'er to have spend 12 turns pumping out workers and then adding them all to the city.

What I typically do is build a couple more workers, order them to develop the remaining land around the city (typically, I only develop enough tiles for 6 pop points to use, since that's all you need for a pump, before my workers move off to develop other cities' terrain. So when I go to turn the pump off, I need another bunch of workers to remedy that). Hopefully, this will include hills to boost production. If not, this will likely include mining over irrigation. I will let the city grow, building the best improvements for happiness (temple, market, perhaps colosseum) and then the others (library, barracks?) as needed. As this process goes on, I will probably add some of the workers back into the city (particularly once the temple & market are done).

Honestly, though, I probably do this all wrong. I probably should build more workers for the express purpose of boosting population (not only in the capital, but also elsewhere). I build a fair number, but mostly only the amount I feel necessary for reasonably quick terrain development. I cannot recall building a worker for the express purpose of adding it to another city in SP, prior to the late medieval (when cities max out at size 12 but still have a +1 or +2 fpt surplus, it's a good idea to build a worker once the food box is full, in between your other builds. The city will grow back to size12 the next turn).

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Enriquillo
Ok, you don't turn it off untill you've filled all available land or until you've reached the optimal amount for corruption, whichever comes first. This depends on difficulty level mostly.

Not even then. Excess settlers, within reasonable cost, are a tool of war and expansion.

[ducki]

Seriously Theseus? Even on a large map when you are just plopping down town after town to do nothing more productive than take up 9 tiles of terrain? And being on the other side of either a)the world on an island or b)the other side of your neighbor's capitol?
This is a funky map, and I had to shut it off, at least for a little bit. I can't manage this monster. I'll switch it back on once I get a grip. I also want to see what happens with the GLib/GLighthouse/GWall now that I have the Pyramids. Muwahahahahahahahaha! Soon your cute little Ancient Cavalry will meet my Samurai, dear Aztec neighbors. Soon, my little friend.

On another note, 1.15 BETA patch is out. Get it while it's hot.

Edit: Culture flips - if I refuse a town, is it refused forever, or will they keep begging me to take them in?

[Dominae]

I too build Settlers until I run out of space, then a few more for military reasons and simple good measure. Mind you, "running out of space" often coincides with "first war of conquest", so usually I keep on needing that Settler pump as enemy lands become mine (I abandon quite a few cities in early conquest). In your Spanish game above, Madrid did not stop building Settlers until the Mayans were half gone, IIRC.

Worker-pumps are different issue. If I only have one pump going, it will probably keep building Workers for most of the game (on a Standard map). In the "Peacekeepers" AU (a Large map game), I had two Worker-pumps going; one stopped sometime during the Industrial era, the other early-Modern. Because joining Workers to cities is counter-productive to improving conquered lands, I always seem to need a steady of supply of Workers throughout the game.

The key to micromanaging Worker-joining is to plan for cities to stop growing. Try to figure out what the city will need in terms of tile improvements for to have +0 Food output at size 12. Usually this just involves a couple of Hills tiles, but it can get a lot more complicated for weird terrain configurations.

Once you know what you need, order your Workers to make it so, then order them to Join the city and presto! you've got a maximum-sized city that you can just forget about. In practice it's more complicated than that, of course. For instance, you ideally want to tailor your Shield output at size 12 to be some multiple of the cost of the improvements or units you're planning on building; multiples of 10 are obviously great, but I find 16 to useful as well (Cavalry in 5 turns). This is another time when tight city-spacing is good, as you can exchange tiles between cities to ensure they're all maximally productive and without waste.

(Sorry for that digression there near the end...)


Dominae

[Arrian]

Worker-pumps are different issue. If I only have one pump going, it will probably keep building Workers for most of the game (on a Standard map). In the "Peacekeepers" AU (a Large map game), I had two Worker-pumps going; one stopped sometime during the Industrial era, the other early-Modern.

Did you ever build any improvements in those cities?

-Arrian

[ducki]

Well balls. Looks like I need to turn the pump back on and build a few more galleys, then. I'm not out of room, just out of logistical mindspace as well as "usable" land. Though, since I plan on trying out Feudalism in this one, a buttload of cruddy size 3-6 towns would help. Once this wonder build is done, back to settlers, I reckon. Problem is, I've only got one other really "good" city. Granted, at Monarch, it's not like I need the wonders, I just really was trying to stick the Byzantines with a big shield loss. Got the pyramids, though, and my Aztec neighbors switched off and completed the (modded-to-no-ivory)-SoZ in the same turn. Even if I run out of room, no war until Samurai, as I want to give his SoZ a chance to build up a fair number of them, just to see how he/I fare. I guess it's a good thing he isn't expanding very well, that way maybe he'll be more representative of a turtling builder-type using SoZ as his primary military.

Anyway, can I ramble or what?
I guess it's back to pumping settlers in a few turns, then once the land is full, pumping workers with military settlers for backup. I sure am going to have a lot of specialists, I think.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
The key to micromanaging Worker-joining is to plan for cities to stop growing. Try to figure out what the city will need in terms of tile improvements for to have +0 Food output at size 12. Usually this just involves a couple of Hills tiles, but it can get a lot more complicated for weird terrain configurations.

Sometimes I even plant forests on nonshielded grassland, to turn that unnecessary extra food into an extra shield. Sometimes it looks funny... I first chop the forest to get the bonus and to look if there is no bonus shield beneath, then the same worker replants the forest. If you have a wheat resource on it, you can strangely forest it too. And if you have that infamous grassland fish (from dried marshland), you can even have fish-wielding trees. That looks weird.

[Arrian]

And if you have that infamous grassland fish (from dried marshland), you can even have fish-wielding trees.

Now THAT's funny.

I tend to try and get my size12's close to +0 fpt, but often end up with a surplus of +1 or +2, which I'm ok with (so long as the city isn't producing, say, 19spt). I've never taken the extra step of planting forest on non-bonus grassland. Dunno if it's ever even occurred to me, actually.

My current capital city, Athens, is size12 with +3fpt, due to wheat-on-fp + cow-on-grass (mined) + several normal fp tiles. I need to go back and mine another plains tile. The city is at 21spt (22 -1 to waste), so it's not like I'm wasting tons of shields. As a matter of fact, since the next build is to be Leonardo's, I don't think that 22spt as opposed to 21spt saves me even 1 turn.

-Arrian

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I first chop the forest to get the bonus and to look if there is no bonus shield beneath, then the same worker replants the forest.

The worst combination for me is tundra+industrious workers. (If you get stuck with tundra, that is.)

First, mine them since it's the only improvement possible in the ancient era.
Second, forest them after Engineering.
Third, chop these forests so that they can build their harbors (or whatever) faster.
Fourth, replant forest to get the shield bonus.
And finally in the industrial era chop them again for good and mine again since it is faster to build railroads and clean up pollution in tundra then in forests.

Lots of chopping

[Theseus]

Military Settlers:

* After starving a captured city to 1 pop, quickly regrow it.

* For captured cities estimated to hard to hold against CF, insta-replacements.

* Coastal hill beach heads for nasty IC invasions.

* Luxury colony cities.

* Cultural encroachment camps for 2 move fastmovers.

The list goes on...

[Arrian]

For captured cities estimated to hard to hold against CF, insta-replacements.

Indeed. Though I typically rushbuild settlers (after waiting the 1 turn, obviously) out of newly captured cities I'm starving down. Sure, the pop will be foreign, but w/o any foreign accumulated culture in the city it's not nearly as much of a concern.

Case in point: last night, playing some more of my insanely lucky (with SGLs) game, I captured Carthage (I thought I was gonna leave them alone, but then I remembered they had spices... and I didn't). Carthage was the 2nd or 3rd best city in the game, containing The Colossus, The Great Lighthouse, The Mausoleum of Massolous (sp?), and The Great Wall.

I burned it, and rushed a settler out of the nearest ex-Carthaginian city to replace it.

Carthage had a little more than 1500 culture points built up. Even though my civ-wide culture was probably 4 to 5 times theirs, I didn't feel like dealing with the flip risk. What was that you said about "sinning in civ" Theseus?

-Arrian

[ducki]

I'm a lot less scared about burning wonders now that I noticed they don't make culture for me.
Or at least the interface shows no pretty little musicnotes next to the wonders. Sure, it hurts, but not as much as losing a slew of troops and rushed improvements, IMO.

Compared to you guys, though, Sherman was an amateur. (Please, no Sherman flames. I'm as southern as they come short of a stick-on Confederate flag in my window. )

[Arrian]

Captured wonders do not provide you with culture, no.

So the only reason to keep them is if their effects will actually help you.

In my case, Carthage was too far away from my Palace (again, unpatched Conquests, so I didn't build a FP) for the Colossus to be useful. The Great Lighthouse and Great Wall were expired for me. Only Maussolous would have provided any benifit, and that's a pretty weak wonder. So I made like a good Roman and erased Carthage.

It's the Romans who make Sherman look like an amateur. "They make a desolation, and call it peace."

-Arrian

[vulture]

Regarding cities at size 12, I like to keep them with some positive food (unless I need to mine an irrigation to get from 19 to 20 spt for example) but try and aim for slightly over a multiple of 10 spt - so 21 is a good target. That way, when the food box is ful, when your next build finishes, you can pop out a worker in one turn, and have 1 turn of being size 11 before getting back to size 12. The reason for the 21 spt is that if you get a nice even 20, that one turn at size 11 when you build a worker may drop you to 19 spt, and this slows down your post-worker build by one more turn. For the cost of 1 turn of production every know and then, this is a nice supplement to your worker population (which may not be necessary if you have a good worker pump that doesn't need to do anything else for a while) in preperation for railroads and then for rejoining their source cities for a quick post-hospital boost in population.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Arrian
So the only reason to keep them is if their effects will actually help you.

With C3C, you do get to enjoy any tourism bonuses that captured wonders provide -- if you capture a wonder (or several wonders) in a tolerably non-corrupt area, the tourism bonuses can be meaningful (greater than the Colussus in your own core, in fact). A minor consideration to be sure, but something that has changed with C3C.

Catt

[Arrian]

That's true, Catt, I wasn't thinking about tourism.

In my game, however, Carthage would have suffered maximum corruption, probably even with a courthouse and police station. Moscow, 5 cities to the south (I tend to measure in cities, not in tiles. Not 5 cities in a straight line, but rather there are 5 cities between Carthage and Moscow for rank purposes) has a courthouse and WLTKD, and is still losing about 60% of its shields to waste.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
Did you ever build any improvements in those cities?

A Granary in each.

It looks kind of weird having two "core" cities so under-developed in the Industrial era, but then I just consider how critical those cities are to my success, and their small stature becomes a badge of honor.


Dominae

[Arrian]

True.

I was trying to be good last game. Really I was. I built a granary in Athens AND a granary in Sparta, and was setting them up to both pump settlers and workers... when I got a SGL for the Pyramids. I had *just* finished the granary in Sparta, too.

After that, utilizing specialized pumps became less necessary (though Athens, Sparta, and another city I can't remember the name of continued pumping for quite some time nonetheless).

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Arrian, it's funny how our styles have evolved. Nice desecration there!!

Re pumps, I love'em, but at a certain point I can't but want to get core cities (if not camps) fully developed. During the build-up to Aquaducts and then Hospitals, and then once cities max out on pop, there are inevitably a number of good cities to "bleed off" pop in the form of Workers and Settlers (and also Workers in very corrupt or captured cities), so that's typically my later game answer.

[ducki]

Re pumps, I love'em, but at a certain point I can't but want to get core cities (if not camps) fully developed.

I'm newbish with pumps, but still want to throw my impression in here.
I'm also finding that once I've expanded to my physical limits (or to the point of silliness), I just have to turn off the pump and improve the city - hopefully by this time I've got at least one other city that can trickle settlers and my military towns can trickle workers as they reach pop limits. I can't abide the thought of my glorious capitol being so far "behind" in culture, size, and happiness, not to mention it's probably going to be one of my most productive(zero corruption) cities. And by the end of the expansion phase, I've gotten the advantage of the pump and as long as I don't mangle the tiles too badly, I can turn it back on just about any time I need to.
Coincidentally, the end of expansion and the completion of basic city improvements in my pumps(in my very limited experience) comes at about the right time to be gearing up for the late-ancient or early middle ages wonders.

I've pretty much completely given up on getting the ancient wonders in most cases. Sure, the Pyramids would be nice, and anything I get is a nice boost, but I'm no longer addicted. I've got troops to build because there are infidels squatting on my lands. Oh, sure, they think it's their land, but I've got this flag, see, and it belongs right about where they are standing. They can either move, or I can plant the flag right through their cold, dead corpse. It's really up to them, see? I try to be a benevolent dictator, they just won't listen.

What was my point?
Oh, right. At some point, usually nearing the end of the Ancient Age, I also have to turn the spigot from hot to cold, otherwise, I just get an uncomfortable, barren feeling and tumbleweeds start rolling through my pump-city. And others can take up the slack as needed, hopefully.

Or I can just do a little open-heart surgery with a pointed stick on the mongrels that are in my way. They really shouldn't crowd me like that, y'know?