Tag Archives: lt30

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T5

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It’s time for the 5th 6th turn of LT30.

Because of work-related problems I can’t put much effort to do my turn today.

Exploration

Today I found some Vietnamese borderlands and the other side of the ocean.

Research

Only one turn until Pottery — which makes Granary and Workers available.

As I did notice yesterday, I really wouldn’t had to rush that much to research it — I have no need for it just yet.

Though it gave me some additional time to rush to build some Warriors to secure my borderlands and maybe one or two workers more, too.

Westminster

This turn I finished irrigation on nearby Buffalo tile and now Westminster gives total of 5 shields/turn — including 75% bonus from capital.

I moved my Worker to build Mine on a nearby Hills (Goal) tile. When it’s ready in 5 turns I’ll get total of 4 shields out of it. After Westminster grows to size 2 in at most nine turns I’ll get total of 12 shields out of Westminster.

Defence

I bought some Warriors this turn. It only cost me 11 gold.

Demographics Report

It looks like my stats might not be too bad yet. However as I’ve told before these numbers don’t tell the clear truth and are some times much harder to read.

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T4

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It’s time for the 5th turn of LT30.

As I’ve updated yesterday’s journal later that day, I made my first contacts to neighbours. I’ve saw Aleut, Grenadian and Finland. I’m sure I’ll see many more upcoming turns. (Two of them are players I’ve played with at freeciv.fi.)

I already talked with some of them about collaborations and possible tech trading in the future. It’s good to start building trust with your co-players as soon as possible. In the end it’s all about trust in these multiuser games with human players.

I’ll soon have to start planning how to design my borders. That’s going to be harder because of the extended movement amounts in Longturn.org. I’ll have to design again how to secure my borders well enough.

It’s only one turn two turns until I’ll have Pottery and I can start building Granaries and Workers. Because I only need 8 bulbs more to get full 56 bulbs for Pottery I can reduce scientists in two or four of my cities — and still get it in 2 turns.

It’s time to check my cities again. It’s easy to forget something without regular checking.

While playing test games for LT30 I decided to build my cities as fast as I can on at least 2 food squares that give equal balance of shields and trade.

I’m not sure now if that was the best option. I had plenty of tiles I could have got 3 food out with the same amount of shields like Plains (Wheat). Those would have been much better as city centers.

Westminster

Westminster — my first city — I built on Plains/River (2-1-2) and there’s one Plains/River (Buffalo) (1-2-1) near where I am building irrigation now — when finished it’s 2-2-1.

In Despotism government I cannot get 3 food from any of these tiles here so there’s no instant need to irrigate any of those 2 food tiles. That’s why I am directing my worker’s resource to irrigate the Buffalo instead.

I’ve got 4 shields in stock out of 40 shields for Granary now. I’m getting 3 shields/turn more but once I change to Buffalo next turn, it’s 5 shields/turn with +75% bonus because it’s my capital. I’ll have Granary built on T11-T12 — in seven or eight turns — early before my city grows to 2.

It takes 10 turns to grow to size 2 and after that only about 5 turns between growing because with Granary I only need 10 food to grow from 1 to 2 again after building Settlers.

London, Birmingham and Liverpool

Rest of my cities are pretty much the same. Built near 2 food squares with some special resources and growing to size 2 some time next 10-12 turns. I’ll maybe writing detailed introductions to them sometime near future.

Research

I ended science rush this turn. I’ve got 48 bulbs of 56 required for Pottery and it’s going to take two turns to finish now. I should’ve stopped it sooner since I don’t actually need Pottery before T11-T12.

Defence Preparations

I’m building Warriors from some of my cities now because I have some borderlands I’m not satisfied yet. However don’t worry I’m really not going to be offensive — unless provoked — and I’ll be writing about that in more detail soon both here and in our private conversations.

Warriors or Workers are also useful because their vision makes citizens in cities able to use more tiles near the city borders.

I truly believe in a game style that makes co-existance possible and thrives the success for all nations — a win-win style for all the parties. I know that’s not how things have been usually at Longturn.org and it’s going to make this game really interesting. I don’t think warfare is always useless but I believe most times co-working is much more productive.

Wolfram Alpha is a really great tool for example if you need to count how much a unit costs the next turn — after you have only 5 shields left — to build Warrior of 10 shields.

You can check the formula from Freeciv Math page and use it almost as it’s there. Just write “T=5, X = ceil(2T + (T^2)/20)” in WolframAlpha — cost is about 12 gold.

However please notice that changing a building to a unit is going to reduce the shield stock by half.

Creating shortcuts for Freeciv servers

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Here’s how you can setup a shortcut directly to Freeciv server.

I’m currently playing three different Freeciv worlds and one of them with two different accounts (until one player comes back from a holiday trip). I thought this might be worth mentioning.

Windows 7

Select Start menu, find Freeciv, and select from the right button drop down menu Send to -> Desktop (create shortcut).

Now your desktop should have an icon named Freeciv. Rename it to “Freeciv LT30” if you’re playing LT30. Select again the right dropdown menu and open Properties. From there add to end of the Target option following text: “ -a -n username -p 5030 -s lt30.longturn.org“. Of course you should change username to match your username. Properties dialog should look like in the example image.

Now you should have a shortcut named Freeciv LT30 on your desktop which you can click to instantly connect to LT30 server. No need to remember server settings.

Linux

Linux systems use different types of shortcut systems. Basically you just need to copy your current shortcut and change it to use arguments “ -a -n username -p 5030 -s lt30.longturn.org” just like in Windows 7.

Daily Journal – Playing LT30/T3

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It’s time for the 4th turn of LT30.

Once more, I start my turn moving my two explorers. I’ve heard rumors that some players have already seen other nations. Maybe I’ll see today, too. (I didn’t. Update: Yes, I did. I saw parts of Aleut’s lands.)

In LT30 explorers have three moves but since they can move on any terrain as they would on roads, it makes total of nine moves (3*3). Because of that there’s no practical reason to move along rivers or avoid harder terrains like mountains.

Moving to check research development — all looking good, I’ll have Pottery in two turns!

(Update: In case you missed how my research is so fast, see my recent blog post about the first turn.)

There doesn’t seem to be much to do for the moment. Because it’s going to be only two turns until I’ll have Pottery, I should continue improving tiles that I’m planning to use next — building more roads and irrigations.

In LT30 workers have three moves, too. With workers it’s often better to move two moves and build something that takes only 1 turn to finish (like a road) than move all three and do nothing that turn. You will have full three moves more next turn. You can still finish the next improvement in the same time if it’s at most two moves away.

Because this turn I didn’t have much real things to do — and for the fun of it — I’ll write also about my Demographic’s Report.

Though it says I’m number one for most of the topics, it doesn’t show the full truth. I’m probably just one of many. Anyway it’s a good sign for the start. The reason I’m not first in some of these is probably just because I’m spurting for the science at the moment.

Maybe I’ll start watching more carefully these reports in the future. Who knows, maybe I’ll spot the first two size city!

That was all for this turn today. Tomorrow more!

Daily Journal – Playing turn LT30/T2

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I am now playing 3rd turn of Longturn LT30.

I started my turn by moving my explorers again. Exploring the world is one of my favorite activities while playing Freeciv.

I haven’t seen other nations yet. This map seems to be really huge. It’s actually bigger map than our latest Finnish game (FI2011) had — and it was really big map, too.

I also founded my fourth city this turn. Liverpool added one scientist more to help research. It’s now three turns until I get Pottery — total of 16 bulbs/turn and I have 16/56 already done.

Because of the science boost my cities don’t produce much shields or food but I’m sure I need Granary before I let them grow and to build more Workers. While I wait for the Pottery I started to build roads and irrigations.

That was all for today’s turn. Tomorrow more!

Behind the Game – Continent Numbers

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In Freeciv the continent numbers are one of the internal bits of detail about your land and the world that is available to the player. In a perfect game, I don’t think you should see this data, but because Freeciv shows it to everybody, I don’t see it as cheating either.

I spotted details about continent numbers from the LT30 chat:

“Continent numbers are assigned beginning at the upper-left corner of the map, and proceeding right and down. The reason that large continents generally get low numbers is that the code is more likely to run into them than smaller continents. While smaller numbers tend to indicate larger continents, that’s not always the case.”

— written by Sgik in LT30 chat

You can check your continent numbers by moving mouse over a tile and pressing down middle mouse button. See the red underlined number in the example image: this tile is on the continent #39 — there’s at least 38 other continents in the world.

Some clients do it differently: I recall Mac version used alt and left or right mouse button. However I cannot confirm it since I don’t have a Mac to test it right now.

The first turn – Selecting a place for your cities and research goals

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The most important thing to do in the start of the game is selecting best places for your first cities.

Also usually the best strategy in the start is to optimize to expand by building new cities.

In LT30 you have four settlers, two explorers and two workers in the beginning. Cities can use 7×7 tiles around the city center (except the corners) but only if you have vision to them. Empty cities have vision of standard 5×5 land.

First you should use your explorers to search the lands around your starting place to have better knowledge of your surroundings.

You start with a Despotism government style and because of that those tiles get -1 penalty of more or equal to 3 resources. For example you will get only 2 food from Ocean (Fish) or Plains (Wheat) instead of normal 3. However by irrigating the Wheat tile, you may get three food even in the despotism.

Each city center will get at least one more of each resource — it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. For example if you build your city to Plains, the city center will generate 2 food, 1 shield and 1 trade (instead of 1/1/0), which is the same if you build it on a Grassland tile. However a city center on mountains will get 1 food, 1 shield and 1 trade (instead of 0/1/0).

You should select a place where you get maximum food output from at least two tiles (including the city center) and use your workers to maximize it (see the blue arrow in the image). That way you get your city to grow faster and you can build new cities faster. It helps if those tiles have shield output. Good optimized compromise to get fast growing cities is two irrigated Plains and a city center on Grassland or Plains tile, because with Granary built it gives you a city that grows and builds settler every 5 turns. It’s even faster if you have irrigated Oasis or Grassland tiles that give you output of three food each turn each tile.

You need to research Pottery to build Granary. Select it from Cilization -> Research (F6). In the start the fastest way to research bulbs is to change your people in the cities as scientists by removing them from the tiles and clicking the icon for specialist (see the red arrow in the image). Another option is to use GMA and select the Max Science governor.

This should give you 3–4 bulbs in each of your city (total about 16 each turn) and you can develop Pottery in only 4–5 turns.

While waiting the Pottery you can start building Barracks in the cities and once Granary is available you can change it to Granary. Just make sure you don’t complete the Barracks before you have Granary available. Also use your workers to irrigate one or two good food tiles near your city.

Without a Granary your cities will not grow as fast. The food stock is reduced to 0 when a city changes it’s size. With a Granary it will be half of the stock which makes growing to a new size half times faster.