Campo Challenge 1

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Campo
Marquis,
- Do you remember if you conquered Philadelphia and then lost it to the Vikings? If not, how did it happen that you conquered Boston and New York, but not Philadelphia in between? Just curious.

I don't lose cities to the AI.
No, I didn't. When the americans declared war on me (the fools), I asked the vikings to join in. They were swarming around, so I couldn't get to Philadelpia after I took Boston. The two crusaders in New York arrived by boat. First they disembarked to raze Buffalo, the sailed on to sack NY.

Originally posted by Campo
- It's interesting that Rome in your game was founded about 8 squares away from in my game. ...

I opened up in cheat mode - the Spanish are a restart on exactly the same tile I found the Romans v1.0. Maybe each game is only internally consistent.

Originally posted by Campo
- I notice that you had fewer settlers than me, I think a lot fewer. Is that typical for you? I was irrigating more than you did, for city growth; I think that was the main reason for the difference.

I tend to use few settlers/engineers. I work hard to improve the capitol and another key city or two, then go settle. The remaining cities get improved slowly as the game goes on. Tho I always intend to have one settler for each city, I end up only building about half that.

[debeest]

I'm up to about 1500 AD and getting close to extirpating them all -- about eight known foreign cities left, and probably one or two replacement-civ cities I haven't found yet. This will be the earliest I've ever conquered. That's partly because I almost always play mid-size worlds, and partly because I've been lucky with huts and such.

I've kept what I consider to be a pretty detailed log, though it falls far short of ST's in terms of explaining the rationales for my choices, and that's really what would have been most useful. Oh well.

I've kept savegames for nearly every turn, as opposed to the ten or twenty saves I usually keep. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to zip and attach them all. What would people like to see?

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Campo
DrFell,
- You did manage to shave a few years off my time. I'm impressed.
- I see you settled your second city faster than I did. And it looks like Nottingham was an advanced tribe?
- I'm surprised you weren't building a settler in London at 3600bc.
- Horseback Riding was your second tech -- did you research that or acquire it through hut or swap?
- I see you captured the Celtic city of Kells with a settler. I can't ever remember doing that in any game. After that you had two undefended cities very close to the Celts. I'm surprised they didn't go after them.
- It also surprises me that you had a happiness problem with just 5 cities.
- Polytheism before Monarchy! I've never been in that situation.
- In AD1, what was the point of all the fortified elephants and the two fortified diplomats east of York?
- Is it too easy for you? I assume you never play a small world map because it's no challenge. Do you play only MP anymore?

Thanks for the lessons. I've learned a lot from this.

1 - I went all out conquest and kill method, which is usually a bit faster than build up and kill
2 - Yep I did get an advanced tribe pretty early on, from my exploring warrior.
3 - Yeah, the settler was an oversight on my part. Played this game through on a PC at uni - noisy room, hard to concentrate
4 - Actually I went for horse first - my 2x2x MP duel early tech path is horse->cere->alpha->code->monarchy, which is what I was going for. The idea was to go for poly right after this, then maybe bronze and writing, for early offense and defence. The capture of Kells, however, gave me writing which changed the order of my tech path (poly first).
5 - When I saw undefended Kells I thought I'd take the chance to weaken the Celts, so I called them up and demanded tribute, after which they declared war. Then I walked in and they sued for peace straight away.
6 - I think I just wasn't managing my cities very well, I did have despo a bit late on though which didn't help.
7 - Yeah I tried to get monarchy before, the junk tech did screw things up a bit.
8 - The fortified elephants and diplos were there to take out respawning civs, the Zulus, Russians, and Babs appeared in the area so I left the units there to save time moving them all around (lazy me), and to catch any other respawners. All the units spread about are there to catch respawners in minimal time.
9 - Yeah I play pretty much MP now, good fun, and a bigger challenge than the AI. I do play a lot of small world MP (small world one continent maps on 2x2x used to be virtually my only setting, and I was good at that), but now I do more medium island maps (a new challenge, although much of the small map stuff still works). But when I'm at uni I only have access to ICQ on these PCs, not the zone where I usually go for a game. So the only civ I can play is SP over here. MP I play sometimes on weekends.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Campo
Some observations to those who posted saves of this game:

Lafayette,
- Do you always use such a high percentage of entertainers? In 780ad you averaged more than one per city, and most of your cities were population 3. By 1320 there wasn't as high a percentage, but still a lot more than I ever have.
- I noticed the Pyramids and King Richard's Crusade in Washington -- I assume the AI built them.
- Why did you leave the barbs in control of Cardiff and not take advantage of bribing for unsupported units? I'd have expected you to either use it for NON units or else conquer the city.

1) No, I don't use entertainers. But I try to avoid building temples when I go for early conquest. The choice is then between martial law and entertainers. I usually choose martial law with warriors. Perhaps I was so eager building elephants and knights that it brought me to the result that you mention.
2) Yes, the AI, of course.
3) IIRC the barbs took control of Cardiff few turns before the end, and I just didn't care.

[Campo]

Thanks for your responses. Cleared up some points.

debeest

I've kept savegames for nearly every turn, as opposed to the ten or twenty saves I usually keep. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to zip and attach them all. What would people like to see?

I'd like to see about every 5th turn. That's far enough apart for there to be some new developments, and close enough to understand what happened. But if the file isn't too big to download then you can zip all your saves, and we can examine the ones we choose. I have a high-speed link at work; don't know if it would pose a problem for people with slower access.

[debeest]

Anybody with slow access would have to be pretty fanatical to spend time on this slow site....

Anyway, here are three zipfiles of all my saves plus my log. It was too big for Apolyton to handle it in one bite, but I think it won't be too bad for downloaders.

[debeest]

Why do I always have trouble attaching files?

[debeest]

Does it really have to be this difficult? I left out 3/4 of the later-game saves in order to more easily meet Apolyton's 500k limit.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by debeest
I've kept savegames for nearly every turn, as opposed to the ten or twenty saves I usually keep. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to zip and attach them all. What would people like to see?

The .sav files should correspond to the comprehensiveness of your log...
In any case I am ordering every turn up to 3000BC.

Edit: sorry, I am very slow

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Campo - I'm curious about where you founded London. With the iron and coal visible, did you consider that it might be a 3 or 4 special city if you founded it in the "sweet spot"? Do you feel it's important to found that quickly?

Yes. One turn lost is one turn lost. It is a terrible loss. The same effect as if you stop your entire empire in the mid-game (no, a worse effect; the effect would be equal only if the world would be constant, without enemies: you can lose a city if your defender will come one turn later in the beginning of the game), or if you get monarchy one Oedo cycle later (remember I estimated 1 turn of lated monarchy to 0.2 of the turn production).
I will have 1 or 2 - sized cities first 50 turns- I don't need 3 or 4 specials for one city now.
Also the shielded grassland on the river is very rich - almost like a special.

Originally posted by Campo - Also, as you asked in your log, I indeed would like to hear your thinking about shields vs. food.

The settler cost (for a case of city size 1) is 40 shields + 20 food + some shields+food lost as support when moving to the new destination. Say the cost is 70 resources. (Later in the game you need a defense also)
The gain depends on the squares that will be worked, if 2 shielded rivered grasslands then you get 2*3.5 resources - 2 food eaten = 5 resources.

The citizen (increased city size) cost is 30 (for a case of city size 2, city size 1 is out of the debate, see the next paragraph) + 10 shields (martial law) = 40 resources
The gain depends on the new square that will be worked, if a shielded rivered grassland (but the 3rd square needn't to be so rich) then you get 3.5 resources - 2 food eaten = 1.5 resources.

But this calculation is not perfect- if you want to be precise then you should take into account also the time when the new source (a new city or new citizen) will be finished - resources that comes sooner have a higher value. If the output of the empire in 3000BC is 2 times higher than in 4000BC then one resource in 4000BC is equal to 2 resources in 3000BC.

Originally posted by Campo I thought from your log that you were working the iron and coal, but I see from the save games that's not correct.

You always have to work food to get city size of 2 and to be able to build a settler. But then you can choose between a settler or a citizen.
Also if you are 4 food from a next citizen but 35 shields from a new settler then the math of the previous paragraph is different.

[SlowThinker]

debeest,
I am unable to load your .zip files

[debeest]

ST, each one is a Winzip file containing about 30-40 saves, plus the log in the second one. I just tested the first one (downloaded it, unzipped it, and loaded it) and it worked perfectly. You might want to try again, using Winzip. If anyone else has trouble, I'll try doing it again.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by debeest
ST, each one is a Winzip file containing about 30-40 saves, plus the log in the second one. I just tested the first one (downloaded it, unzipped it, and loaded it) and it worked perfectly. You might want to try again, using Winzip. If anyone else has trouble, I'll try doing it again.

debest1.zip is OK, but with debeest.zip the Explorer reports "page not found"...

[SlowThinker]

I atach saves and log from 3000BC to 2000BC.

[SlowThinker]

Campo and debeest, I had to stop observing your games soon, I would reveal the North. In my game I wasn't there yet.

---

debeest,
3900
Is the chance to get barbs lower if you have only one city? I thought only 0 cities protects you from barbs, later odds are equal for any number of cities...
I would build a city so that the hut is in the city radius and grab it with a warrior.
I use the incremental rushbuild cheat and so I researched Bronze Working first so that I can rushbuild to 20 shileds as soon as possible.

3500
I see I am gutless: I mean huts. As I explained in my log, I am not afraid from a bad tech, but from barbs. Do you hope they wouldn't find your cities?
I see you are building the road through hills: You lose about 10 turns of your settler,I think it is a big loss. I thought you want to keep the NON-settler, but you are on the river and therefore the roads are not needed necessarily. This is why I preferred to build first four cities so close one to another and on the river.

3050
I see you are afraid of the hut content now... Why?
I explore another way than you, since I am afraid of huts: I explore only near neighbourhood: I just want to find good spots for next cities and to find out the direction of a possible danger.

---

Campo,
The difference between our games in the speed of building cities and their proximity- I think I explained that when I answered your questions sooner.
I think that cities 3 squares far apart connected by roads are very useful for units rehoming: you can switch and rehome units in one turn, and so you don't miss the martial law effect of units. Also you can have less phalanx if you are able to move them into the city in danger in one turn.

3550
I would choose Bronze working (see notes to debeest's game). But I didn't realize the diplomat is not worse than Phalanx for rushbuilds! (You only can't choose Writing as the 1st tech, and so you might miss the first one or two rushbuilds, if you would build cities as fast as me). But now, you have some defense (Archer) and I think you can afford Writing. Diplo is a perfect explorer (no support).

I read the log:

Originally posted by campo
2250 - London settler builds two roads near York to increase trade.
Discover Monarchy. Missed Odeo year by one turn. Choose to revolt to
Monarchy anyway.

No, you must always revolt the year prior to Oedo! Then you will get into anarchy (no beakers, no gold) for 1 turn only.
Edited: I think I am wrong. You can have an "instant" revolution probably. See my question to debeest later on this page.
Excuse me

Originally posted by Campo
2050 - Nottingham rush-buys settler.

Do you rushbuild to the "end"? Try to avoid it, because you lose shields of the last turn this way. Rushbuild settlers to 10, 20, 30 shields only.

[SlowThinker]

DrFell,

4000 and 3750: it is fun to reveal missing turns
In my log I asked who went differentially in 4000BC (I went S and W). I see you moved both settlers to the same direction (South). Why?
I see you revealed the special (whales), but the coal was closer and accessible by river. If I count well then you didn't have time to reveal it before London building. Or am I wrong?

The same question as for others: Aren't you afraid of barbs from huts after the first city? Or is the chance for barbs lower in the beginning of the game?

3450
What happened to that Celt horsemen?
I tried to play 2 turns: he traversed my territory and disappeared in North.

That stupid AI: The horsemen went through river diagonally! Who programmed it? Own up!

[debeest]

ST, I successfully downloaded, unzipped, and opened the files from debeest.zip as well as debeest1.zip. I have no explanation for difficulty with it. Anyone else having trouble? (Anyone else even paying attention?)

Early barbarian risk: if I remember correctly, there are no early wandering barbs, but you can get them from villages. So there is always the chance that you'll get a nasty archer and it will hunt you down and kill your capital. But I don't think it's ever happened to me. I balance that risk against the value of an early exploring unit, or better yet a settler or a city, and I decide that it's worth taking the small chance of wrecking the game and moving on to the next one. In fact, I usually specifically choose not to build cities with villages in their radius, because in addition to never producing barbarians, they also never produce settlers or cities. I think the reason I explored this particular village is that I could see that I wanted to build a city in that area, so I wanted to pop the hut first. I got lucky. I was very surprised to get a city in this case, because I still had a NON settler, and I'm convinced by discussions here and by my own experience that you get lots more NON settlers if you don't have any on the continent; but I guess cities and settlers follow different rules.

I think you're quite right about the road through the hills. Don't know what I was thinking there. For the nomadic reason above, I usually now build with both NON settlers ASAP. Maybe that slipped my mind when I got the free city. Mind you, that river was only going to allow a four-turn (sometimes three-turn) trip between the cities, not much faster than going straight overland, but the road wasn't all that much faster (two-turn trip). I should have headed south or north to build.

By 3050, I had already visited three villages and gotten lucky twice -- a city, and a tech on the monarchy path -- and less lucky once, so that I had the one non-monarchy tech. I didn't want to get another one until I learned monarchy.

Thanks! Your comments are always interesting and useful.

[SlowThinker]

debeest,
finally, after many "404 Not Found" errors I loaded it.

---

Originally posted by debeest
In fact, I usually specifically choose not to build cities with villages in their radius, because in addition to never producing barbarians, they also never produce settlers or cities.

I see I am poorly educated.
But I had a feeling that the chance to get a settler or a city is always very low (?).

Originally posted by debeest
So there is always the chance that you'll get a nasty archer and it will hunt you down and kill your capital. But I don't think it's ever happened to me.

In my few games I was always afraid to take huts early. But I have a feeling that there may be about 25% chance to get barbs after 2000, 1500 BC.
So do you think it is less dangerous in the beginning than in the mid-game?

In the Campo game, there is a desert area with a hut (north from the starting position, behind mountains). Now I am somewhere in 1500BC, and green warrior unleashed 4 barbs there. I reload sometimes, because I forget to rushbuild or to switch production etc. This time, I had to load the position more times, so that I get the same situation as before (there were not only barbs but also some AI units moving). The barbs popped up in about a half of instances!

Originally posted by debeest
I balance that risk against the value of an early exploring unit, or better yet a settler or a city, and I decide that it's worth taking the small chance of wrecking the game and moving on to the next one.

You know, I would never try to compare the chance to be killed with the chance to get an easier life...
The importance not to be killed (I mean all my civ, not the exploring unit) is so high that even a 1% chance is inadmissible for me.

Originally posted by deebest
Mind you, that river was only going to allow a four-turn (sometimes three-turn) trip between the cities, not much faster than going straight overland, but the road wasn't all that much faster (two-turn trip). I should have headed south or north to build.

I would build one or two cities between, on the river. (Read also what I wrote to Campo) Did you see my game? First 4 cities are very close. I think especially on the river (with rich squares) cities may be very dense.
(In all games I loaded I noticed an attempt not to overlap cities. I could agree with the 20th city, but in the beginning I disagree hardly.)

A sidenote: The river ended by a jungle and that was bad. I evaluate the possibity to put the river together with a road high enough. I thought about building on the jungle for a while

---

I read your log:
I am envy of your monarchy in 2700, 2 Oedo cycles before me.
But I see "-0825 build Warwick". I had Warwick in -1700! I tried to build cities as fast as possible (up to 8,9 cities in monarchy). I think deity prefers shields over food very clearly.

Edited alittle.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by debeest in his log
-2700 monarchy (66 science/6th tech) (should I have adjusted science to get monarchy in -2650 for instant revolution?);

What is the instant revolution? I tought you MUST have one turn of the anarchy...

I think I understand- if the computer asks you he himself if you want to revolt and it is Oedo year then it is instant?

( I remember I was 2 beakers short to get monarchy in 2300 and so I went to work ocean)

Edited: In other words there is a blunder in my "advice" to Campo, posted 02-05-2002 18:21

[Straybow]

That depends on what you mean by "one turn." When you change, you go into disorder. Beakers and shields are added at the end of the turn so they do not accrue, unless you have Miss Liberty. However, you can rush to the end that turn before you initiate the revolution because you will lose the shields anyway.

If you revolt right away (when the computer asks after telling you that your scientists have discovered it) you will lose out on that. Your cities will be in disorder, so you can rush improvements but not units.

Wait until your turn is already complete before you revolt by the Oedo cycle, and then you regain control at the beginning of next turn. You are vulnerable during the opponents' turns, but unless they were already prepared to bribe units or cities away from you they will not likely be able to hurt you in that way.

---

Once again I find out I'm just not good for all-out conquest style. I started a game, but the TV was on and before I knew it I'd played 80 turns (3000BC to 400AD) in something half-way perfectionist. Hadn't even gone to war, just built units in preparation. I'll have to turn the clock back and redo, trying to do the huts exactly the same way as the first time…

I thinks the SGs can play so fast because they work together. One can do while the other can think and document.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Straybow

I thinks the SGs can play so fast because they work together. One can do while the other can think and document.

Who is the one who thinks?
...

[Scouse Gits]

Now that would be ... him!

SG[1]

[DrFell]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
4000 and 3750: it is fun to reveal missing turns
In my log I asked who went differentially in 4000BC (I went S and W). I see you moved both settlers to the same direction (South). Why?
I see you revealed the special (whales), but the coal was closer and accessible by river. If I count well then you didn't have time to reveal it before London building. Or am I wrong?

The same question as for others: Aren't you afraid of barbs from huts after the first city? Or is the chance for barbs lower in the beginning of the game?

3450
What happened to that Celt horsemen?
I tried to play 2 turns: he traversed my territory and disappeared in North.

That stupid AI: The horsemen went through river diagonally! Who programmed it? Own up!

Yep, I moved both setts in the same direction to uncover the hidden special (I figured there'd be one to complete the pattern) and get my capital built at the same time. So I built my cap, then on the next turn uncovered the whale (I think) then move that sett over to build York.

I'm not too afraid of barbs early on, the potential benefits of units/money/cities from huts outweight the disadvantages IMO.

The Celt horse went peacefully through my territory, and on my 3300bc save he's one square east of the iron.

As for the horse moving, I'm not sure if I've ever seen the AI make a smart move, guess that's why I play mostly MP now

[debeest]

ST, the chance for nomads is not always small. There was a thread some months ago about the chances of nomads. The person found astoundingly different results depending on whether or not you already had a NON settler on the continent. I tried it, and my experience, unquantified, seems to confirm the finding. I don't get the huge percentage of nomads that that writer did, but I do get a lot of them. That alone is sufficient reason to build two cities right away, given the tremendous value of a free early city. I guess I just suffered a mental meltdown when I got a city before I'd built with my second NON settler. My failure to build a third city right away probably impaired my game drastically. I threw away the benefit of the very early free city.

About fear of barbs: I'm not saying the chance of barbs from huts is small. It's just that they're, well, you know, barbarians, operated by the AI, and they don't seem to be very good at hunting me down. They kill the heroic explorers that find them, and then they mill around burning down the forests until they wander off and disappear. If I were leader of a real-world civilization I don't know if I'd make the same decision, but consider an MP game: suddenly you're not sure you're smarter than your opponents (or even as smart as them), and your long-term survival may depend on getting a jump on them and taking the small chance of losing right away. This is the kind of strategic question that makes the game fun.

You're absolutely right, I was very slow to build cities. I've had pneumonia for the last couple of weeks (the only reason I had time enough to play this game through so "fast"). I'll blame that for my mental impairment. Yeah, that's the ticket....

Instant revolution: I'm not sure Straybow has it entirely right. My understanding is that if you learn the government tech at the beginning of the Oedo year, and you accepted the offer to revolt then, you will have anarchy only for the rest of the city-processing period. Science, taxes, and shields accumulate on a city-by-city basis, from newest city to oldest city. Cities processed before the discovery accrue normally; cities processed after the discovery and revolt are processed in anarchy. When the city processing is done, you're offered a government before your move. It's not actually an instant revolution, because it's possible for most of your cities' production to be wasted if an early city produces the government tech, but if you're lucky or skillful you can arrange it so that your last city produces it, and then you may truly have instant revolution. By comparison, using Oedo years normally, or depending on SoL, you have to declare your revolt the turn before the Oedo year, and you do spend a whole city-processing period, as well as your opponents' full turns, in anarchy. I think with instant revolution, if you can anticipate it accurately, you could even rush-build to completion only in the cities that will be processed after the revolution and so take full advantage of Straybow's observation.

In Civ2.42, this is complicated somewhat because the date shown by the game during that between-turns period is undependable, sometimes showing the date of the turn in which you've just finished moving, and sometimes showing the date of the next turn, which you want to be the Oedo year. Gotta pay attention. Especially if you suddenly get notified that you've got the new government tech, and you get the offer of revolution: it may not be easy to tell the date at that point if you weren't paying close attention.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by Straybow
When you change, you go into disorder. Beakers and shields are added at the end of the turn so they do not accrue, unless you have Miss Liberty.

I think that anarchy works with full shield output and no disorder. Only gold and beakers are lost.

I run some test and I think I understand the problem of "instant revolution", see Managing cities: the order

[SlowThinker]

debeest,
You revealed 2nd mistake in my game. First instant revolution, now huts...
I had a feeling I play very well, you stole it...

Originally posted by debeest
My failure to build a third city right away probably impaired my game drastically. I threw away the benefit of the very early free city.

Yes. I think all the road had almost no effect. Approx. 17 turns lost - Almost 1 settler additional could be done. You could have 4 cities when you had 3. Almost 1/4 of the empire was lost.

Originally posted by debeest
you could even rush-build to completion only in the cities that will be processed after the revolution and so take full advantage of Straybow's observation.

I agree with you for the instant revolution, but...

Originally posted by debeest
I think with instant revolution, if you can anticipate it accurately, you could even rush-build to completion only in the cities that will be processed after the revolution and so take full advantage of Straybow's observation.

I didn't notice any association between anarchy and disorder/rushbuild...

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by SlowThinker
I see I am gutless: I mean huts. As I explained in my log, I am not afraid from a bad tech, but from barbs.

A run of unwanted science from huts can cripple your empire as much as a barb. With no starting techs there are seven advances possible and only two are on the Monarchy path. Bad odds! Once F6 is cluttered up with Warrior Code, Iron Working, Masonry and Pottery the first goal of Monarchy slips further over the horizon.

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

SG(2)

[debeest]

Well, SlowThinker, you won't know whether you play [I]well[I] until you actually play out a game, will you?

Seriously, though, from the depth and insightfulness of your analysis, it's hard to believe you've hardly played the game at all, and I'm quite sure when you do play you do it well. Nothing wrong with your game through 2000 B.C.E.

I've never been clear on exactly what gets lost under anarchy. You're probably right that shields are not all lost, so the rush-building-opportunity advice is probably wrong. But I've always been an obsessive manager, looking at every city at the end of every turn to see if there's a way to make things come out even. And I always found that shields would get lopped off by anarchy one way or another, so that my 20-shield-producing city would yield just one or two less, costing me a whole extra turn's production to complete the construction. Unwilling to put up with this, I usually only have two or three revolutions per game, even with knowledge of Oedo years.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by SG(2)
A run of unwanted science from huts can cripple your empire as much as a barb. With no starting techs there are seven advances possible and only two are on the Monarchy path. Bad odds!

Could you be more concrete? What is wrong in my reasoning in my log, year 3150?

In that reasoning I forgot that with small cities the monarchy also brings some shields due to better support rules. But the increse of resources won't be higher than 25%.

---

Originally posted by debeest
Well, SlowThinker, you won't know whether you play well[I] until you actually [I]play out a game, will you?

I meant I played well that beginning of the Campo game, I didn't mean I am a good player generally!

Originally posted by debeest
I've never been clear on exactly what gets lost under anarchy. You're probably right that shields are not all lost, so the rush-building-opportunity advice is probably wrong.

I tested it again: the shield waste under anarchy is about 1/3 higher than under monarchy. So, I wasn't correct.
But I claim there are no problems with rushbuilds.

[Straybow]

"…there are no problems with rushbuilds."

Eh, you may be right. I change governments so infrequently (typically only twice in a game, and I play less than once a month) that sometimes I forget. Listen to somebody else on the details.