27-01-2005 05:31									#1
	Help me beat Demigod Increase the size of your Attachments

This is the best I have ever done on Demigod, but this is where I usually get into trouble.

A successful war against Rome gave me plenty of land up north. Just finished a war with France and got land in the Esat, but they had no technology to give. None of these wars produced any MGLs.

What is my next move? I'm thinking that with enough units and some allies I can take some of the Hittites best cities and some nice wonders.

This is with the AU 1.07 Mod. Also a pretty cool random map.

Attachment: vikingd.sav
This has been downloaded 11 time(s).

	27-01-2005 10:46									#2
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Can you post the start?

	27-01-2005 19:34									#3
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This is the only one I transfered from the old computer.

I hope you have more insight for me. Your tip about more workers made all the difference in the world to my early game.

I keep trying to get population up like you said as well, but I need such a large army I don't think I can afford to change governments. I'm still in Despotism in 130 AD, so towns are just as good as cities.

	27-01-2005 20:13									#4
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If you have a large army, few size 7+ cities, and a nearby oppoent, try Fedualism.

Especally on the AU Mod which features an extremely low corruption/waste level for Fedualism.

Low WW govts will not collapse the govt.

	27-01-2005 20:53									#5
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Builder's perspective:

• Leaving the Game Forest near the capital looks very weird. That lost you a lot of food, considerably slowing down the REX. Same goes for leaving Forests around, when you have Hills and Mountains.
  
• Almost no Granaries?
  
• Almost no Courthouses?
  
• The production penalty of Despotism is killing your growth, production, and cashflow. Get out of it ASAP. Even a Republic could pay upkeep for that number of units.
  
• You have too few Workers, even counting the Slaves. Especially with that Jungle taking a large part of the empire, you should be using twice as many IMO. You have 3 Slaves fortified in Avignon, for no apparent reason.
  
• Your Workers are clearing Jungle, when there are Grassland tiles with only Roads on them. It's usually best to do the quicker jobs first, so tiles can be used at maximum production capacity, and cities can grow ASAP.

	27-01-2005 21:05									#6
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This is all very useful.

I got through Emperor as a builder, but it never worked for me on Demigod. I finally decided to try something completely different and be a warmonger.

Not an easy transition as you can see.

	27-01-2005 21:33									#7
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I have no experience with the mod, but I would echo getting out of depotism. At demi, I would opt for republic as you want to NOT have to have MP's.

It is tempting to get the mp boost, but you will need so many more units. You want to be able to take troops out of safe cities and send them to danger spots or into combat, not pay for them to do guard duty.

Not to be mean, but if you need pointers on workers, you should reconsider playing on Demi.

	27-01-2005 22:52									#8
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quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 Not to be mean, but if you need pointers on workers, you should reconsider playing on Demi.

That was kinda mean, but I will not reconsider!

I will attack the Hittites in the west now.

If things go well I will post another save.

If things go badly I will edit my posts to make you look silly.

	28-01-2005 00:26									#9
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Best of luck.

	28-01-2005 00:31									#10
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My natural inclientations are towards builder, but I think that the Vickings are best played as a war mongler in the ancient and midldle ages.

They do have the Bersker as a UU.

I strongly agree that forest around the capital should have been chopped early on to hurry things like Baracks and Graneries.

And yes, clearing jungle is generally a realtively low priority, especally for a non-industrious civ. Improve the existing grassland before creating more.

	28-01-2005 01:26									#11
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Ok here is some concrete input:

1- Chatres is roiting and building a Pike with no barracks. It only makes one shiled, so this is doubly bad.

Almost never make units other than warriors/archers without a barracks. If a unit is going to take 30 turns, forget it.

2- You have a bunch of 2 man worker teams doing jungle. These are either 2 natives or 2 slaves and a native so effectively the same. I did not look to see what they could be doing that is better, but if you deem clearing a jungle important, use a gang.

It is better to have a 8 man job (or what every the manpower) done by 8 workers than 4 teams of 2. This is because you get the job done sooner and get the improvement now. Yes in 4 tunrs the same amount of work is done, but you got the benefit of the improvement for three turns and are better off.

3- why build walls? They can be useful, but it is usually not a good thing and surely only in a town that is in action. Odense is not one of them.

4- Odense switch the citizen on the hill to the dye so it can grow. Change barracks to temple, it is in no shape to build troops right now. You are near your limit and are not currently at war anyway.

5- Antium making a Pike, but only makes one shield.

6- Birka making a court, but it is rather small and not that corrupted and may be able to do something better, even if it just to generate some gold. Maybe another worker.

7- Trondheim has an entertainer and it does not need it and should be on the mine. This save one turn on the pike.

8- Aarthus switch the market to a temple. This is needed because it will grow in two turns and be unhappy.

9- Oslo move citizen from 7 to the mined BG.

10- Stavenger move citizen from forest to mine, it is not growing otherwise.

Now maybe all would not agree with everything I have said, but it does point out the inattention to detail. This is very dangerous at levels above Emperor.

Lots of tiles have forest that should have been chopped early on and many cities do not have a single mine. Shields and food are the tools of victory.

It is going to be very hard to over come not using workers and citizen to a high advantge at Demi. It can be done, but will require great tactics and trading skills.

I understand how you can get to this point and not switch out of despotism when under pressure, but it has to be done and soon.
More micromanaging would have relieved some of the pressure.

You will need to get two units to each city of size 3 or better before the switch to minimize loss of production.

Most of the civs have 4 techs more than you and have knights. If you can trade for it, do so otherwise that is what I would research. The KT is built, so they may trade it now.

Again good luck.

	28-01-2005 02:31									#12
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Overall, at Demigod, attention to detail is extremely important in the epic game, even with stock rules.

With the AU mod, it is even more so.

It is also important on any mod to know how this affects things.

With the AU mod 1.07:

Fedualism is much stronger than normal [Minimum corruption] This will result in mimum build times for units and improvements.

Republic is stronger than normal if you have < 12 cities that area size 7+ [18 free units but only 2 f.s. for medium size cities],

Democracy is stronger than normal, but doesn't benifit as much due to the timing, making it even less used when coming from Republic when not religious. Democracy still looks like a good pick for those that were warmongling under Monarchy /' Fedualism during the early middle ages and now intend to develop their enlarged empire in the late middle ages.

Communism does not have the SPHQ, instead Fascism does. Weakening communism & strengthening Fascism.

Too many to list unit changes, the most important ones for the Vikings are that Curraghs need 2 MP to enter sea and are prohibited from entering ocean and Galleys need 2 MP to enter ocean.

	28-01-2005 04:35									#13
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One thing that helps a lot: accept the fact, that giving in to some demands can be the difference between a game lost, and a game won. This is important early on, when the AI is running around with way too many spare units.

	28-01-2005 05:53									#14
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7- Trondheim has an entertainer and it does not need it and should be on the mine. This save one turn on the pike.

Whoops I mistook content for happy, so this needs some action on the lux slider to get the entertainer working again. The point is the same and that is you do not want to have use entertainers in the capitol in the middle ages. It is fine once you get to metro size.

I also forgot to mention moving the taxman(?) to the mined bg in Chartres. It probably does not matter as I can see a few civs are looking to take you out and they are coming with Knights, so it could get rough.

I dislike not having any two move units at this juncture. I would have like to see some horses. It is a lot easy to upgrade horses, than to build knights from scratch, especially in a pinch.

You need the movement to help fight fires and come to the aid of cities.

	31-01-2005 00:48									#15
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 It is better to have a 8 man job (or what every the manpower) done by 8 workers than 4 teams of 2.

sorry to drop in and side-track things here, but this is something that's been in the back of my little mind for a while.
i always used to stack all the workers i could, to get a job finished in the minimum possible time.
then i noticed that this isn't really efficient.
eg.
some jobs might take 8 turns for one worker
with two workers, the job often takes 3 turns --- bonus!
now, to get that job done in 2 turns will require four workers.

iow with 1, 4, or 8 workers on the same tile, a job takes eight worker-turns
with 2 workers on that tile, the job takes only six worker-turns

so if i split the workers up and use smaller gangs, i get a higher overall efficiency

did you take this into account in your post above?
do you normally take this into account in-game or do you just stack them 'til you get down to one turn per job?

	31-01-2005 01:23									#16
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I don't believe your numbers at all. Any proof? There are no bonuses, it just gets rounded up. The only thing I can think is that you were trying to irrigate with a Slave (8 turns) and then added a Worker (as good as two Slaves), dropping it to 3 turns (8/3).

	31-01-2005 02:28									#17
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Well of course you have to intelligently stack workers to fit the task at hand. This can mean using a slave to save a worker turn here and there.

Later you have enough to not sweat the details, but in the ancient times it can be useful to be frugal using workers.

Anyway that was not my main purpose. I was trying to point how the concept of getting a tile in action asap as opposed to having a few done at the same time, but later.

	31-01-2005 21:26									#18
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Adding successively more workers to a stack produces diminishing returns.

If it takes 24 turns to clear jungle, then 1 worker will do it in 24 turns.

2 workers in 12 turns
3 workers in 8 turns
4 workers in 6 turns
5 workers in 5 turns
6-7 workers in 4 turns
8-11 workers in 3 turns
12-23 workers in 2 turns
24 workers in 1 turn (yeah, right!)

The good news is that the extra workers' turns are not lost. If you really did command 23 workers to clear a jungle, it would still take 2 turns to finish, but on the second turn 22 of the workers would be available to move or do something else.

	31-01-2005 21:38									#19
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quote: Originally posted by gunkulator The good news is that the extra workers' turns are not lost. If you really did command 23 workers to clear a jungle, it would still take 2 turns to finish, but on the second turn 22 of the workers would be available to move or do something else.

No, as you describe it, the entire 23-Worker crew would take 2 whole turns to complete the job. The game will happily waste Worker-turns for you if you do not use a number of Workers that evenly divides the number of Worker-turns required to complete a particular job.

It works as you describe only if you order an additional (24th) Worker to finish the job on the second turn. This "forcing through" the remaining Worker-turns causes the Workers that were already working from previous turns to "wake up" and be ready to do something else.

	31-01-2005 23:36									#20
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If you're clearing jungle when the city is smaller than the available food tiles, it can be better not to stack workers too high. Moving 24 workers onto a tile means 24 worker turns are lost to movement to clear 1 tile. Moving 3 stacks of 8 workers onto 3 jungle tiles only loses 8 worker turns to movement per tile.

Another consideration with worker stacks is what you want to do when it's finished. As traits, tech, government and worker type affect worker speed, you need to know your build times.

Assuming 3 wt (worker turns) are needed for a road on grass, if I'm in no hurry I'll use gangs of 3 workers on a jungle (8 turns) so they can do a road the turn after they finish. If in more of a hurry I may use 2 pairs of 6 on adjacent tiles. They each road on completion, and the spare 6 do a mine that turn on one of the tiles. The second is mined next turn.

With RR, the 'finishing off' that Dom mentioned comes heavily into play. If I've only got 5 slaves left, and need 6 for a RR, I'll do the 5 and finish with a spare slave from somewhere next turn, allowing the 5 to move on with no loss of efficiency.

As others have stated above, worker management becomes more important as the difficulty level increases.

	31-01-2005 23:43									#21
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quote: Originally posted by gunkulator Adding successively more workers to a stack produces diminishing returns.

The thing is, what is the need at this point? Am I only clearing the jungle to get rid of the jungle and maybe prevent sickness?

Am I clearing the jungle because I cannot get enough food to grow the city? Are there better things that could be done with these workers and if so how far away is that task?

It may well be that the best use of the workers at this time is to use them all on the jungle, but it is surely not useful to have 4 clearings going on with 1 or 2 workers on each. All right near each other.

IOW 10 bucks for a bottle of water is normally excessive, but not is you are dying of thrist and have the 10 bucks. So diminishing returns is a consideration not the answer. Same when clearing pollution in a metro that needs that tile to feed itself or finish that build. Slap on enough workers to get it done now, if you can.

	01-02-2005 00:15									#22
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Dominae, I think you might be wrong about Workers finishing the job. I've often had some expensive one done, and only part of the Worker-gang woken up, while the rest was out of moves for the turn.

As to clearing any square, the most efficient way is, of course, to have one Worker do the job. But this is only assuming, that there is enough time, and the tile won't be needed before 1 Worker is done with clearing+roading (so a gang can come in and finish the job). If it's to be used now, it might be worth stacking the guys to do it quickly. It depends very much on the number of available Workers - the more you have, the less you will feel a couple lost Worker-turns. Darned Civ, made the answer "it depends" again.

	01-02-2005 02:03									#23
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Modo44 that probably because you did not put enough workers on the job to actually finish it that turn. The way to know is to send another worker over to the task and see it is not able to work on the task as it is done.

If you have rails this is easy to do, otherwise you will probably not do that. Granted at this stage you are not going to crash and burn because of a bit of inefficency.

Last edited by vmxa1 on 01-02-2005 at 06:47

	01-02-2005 02:37									#24
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I'm pretty sure that each worker is cycled through individually. When a worker completes a job, any other identically ordered workers that have not been cycled through in the stack wake up.

Try it with building rails. It typically takes 6 worker-turns to build rails on grass before Replaceable Parts (non-Industrious). Put 5 workers on the task. On the second turn 4 will be available to move.

	01-02-2005 03:34									#25
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quote: Originally posted by gunkulator I'm pretty sure that each worker is cycled through individually. When a worker completes a job, any other identically ordered workers that have not been cycled through in the stack wake up. Try it with building rails. It typically takes 6 worker-turns to build rails on grass before Replaceable Parts (non-Industrious). Put 5 workers on the task. On the second turn 4 will be available to move.

Can you post a save to show this?

I just tried a simple test: 2 non-Industrious Workers ordered to Road a tile, 3 Worker-turns, time required 2 turns. Both Workers were busy for both turns.

There must be some difference between our games. Are you using the "Railroad To..." command? Are you playing MP or PBEM? Are you adding Workers to the stack on subsequent turns? Are you using a combination of slave/native Workers?

	01-02-2005 04:25									#26
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Ok, it isn't as clear as I thought. It works one way, and then it works the other. No clue why.

Sometimes, waiting for all units to move will make use of the Workers, that have jobs assigned this turn. This can for example finish you a Road, that had 1 turn left when the turn started. BUT, on other occasions, you can wait all you want, and the Worker (even a solitary one) will stay with the green light on (not moved, so no work done), instead of finishing the job. To see this, it's best to load an advanced save (many Workers finishing things every turn), and watch the results. Have fun

What I mean is: if the Worker finishes a job this turn, his buddies could still be moved; but if he doesn't, the whole group will be busy until next turn.

Last edited by Modo44 on 01-02-2005 at 04:31

	01-02-2005 13:57									#27
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There is a known bug in PBEM whereby unfortified "greened" Workers will just sit there unnoticed for the whole turn and not put their hand up for work. If you don't check all your Workers you can easily have some going for several turns without doing anything, particularly when in stacks covered by other Workers or military units.

I didn't think this carried over into SP, but judging by Modo's observations, perhaps it does. Otherwise I would agree with Dom's comments - and the 2 workers building a road is the prime example.....you definitely waste a worker turn doing this.

	01-02-2005 19:38									#28
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Modo, gunkulator: do automate any Workers? Please post a save confirming your observations if you can.

	01-02-2005 20:16									#29
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I can only comment for PBEM, but I definitely do not lose Worker turns in the manner described. I've been building a road of about 5 tiles for the past few turns in one game with two non-Industrious Workers. It goes like this:

Turn 1: They both start a road
Turn 2: The road is finished, one Worker moves to the next tile.
Turn 3: One Worker starts the new road, the next moves to that tile.
Turn 4: The second Worker completes the road, neither can move.
Turn 5: They both move to the next tile.

Repeat.

I have noticed pecularities with Worker turns in PBEMs, however. For example, improvements seem to finish one turn earlier than the way they normally do, but the Worker cannot move at that juncture. By the same token, if a Worker is working and I want him to stop, he cannot move until the following turn. This can be very annoying, as you thus need two turns warning in order to save a Worker from barbs or other enemies.

	01-02-2005 20:50									#30
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I'd post a save if I could but I'm at work. I typically only fire up civ on the weekends as I have very little free time during the week. If nobody posts until then, I'll dig up a save.

I know it works this way for me because I just lost a worker to the AI because of this. My stack of what I thought was 12 workers was building rails on forest in newly captured land. Turns out there were 13 workers. One woke up and I thought they were all ready to move so I moved the first worker to the next square and told it to build rails. Unfortunately, only one other was able to move that turn. Having only 1 spare Infantry, I left him on the stack of 12 and sure enough, an AI cavalry grabbed the lone guy.

Last edited by gunkulator on 01-02-2005 at 23:47