Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 1 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=170295) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest. I hope you enjoy the game.

This game will be played in Civ4, patched to v1.61.

This first SGOTM will not feature any advanced variant.. the winner simply will be the team that wins the game at the earliest game date with either domination or a diplomatic victory. All victory conditions are still enabled though, with exception of Space Race, so you have to avoid getting another type of victory (and of course prevent the AIs from winning).

Individual start files for all teams will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) at midnight, server local time, at the start of May 12.

Here's the start position.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM01_start.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Hapshepsut of Egypt
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Mystery
Game Speed - Epic

Permanent Alliances are turned on (can form permanent alliances after either communism or fascism is researched)
Space race is disabled.
Egypt is locked into war with Huayna Capac of the Incas.
Egypt is locked into peace with an unknown civilization.

The map is hand built, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared:
Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439)

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization4 v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award - the Gold Laurels.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by either domination or diplomacy.

C. All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

Good luck to your team, and remember rule #1: Enjoy your game :D

Hello everyone :D

Signing in.

Just checking in. First task is to confirm our team name. I am reposting the list I put in KK-02 in here for further discussion. Deadline is the 10th.

-- Peon,
-- Kikin & Screamin,
-- Fleeing Peon,
-- Scourge,
-- Legion,
-- Blunders never cease,
-- The Good, The Bad and the Ugly,
-- Sid Meier Appreciation Society,
-- Axis of Evil,
-- Big Willy and Mike Hunt <-- Forget this one, appealled to my wacked sense of humour.
-- Norfolk 'n' good. <-- I wonder if they'd let us get away with that? [EDIT: AlanH has said Norfolk 'n' Hope in his heavy geordie accent.]
-- SOD <-- Sid's Our Daddy (you sure about this Mike?) -- 2nd'd by sooooo.
-- Peons, the nostalgic choppers
-- Failure diplomats
-- KKK <-- Kikinit's Klan
-- Fractal Frenzy (1 vote from ZerrorZ)
-- Motley crew
-- Fistful of dynamite (Rihiter's choice) -- 2nd'd by blid + 3rd'd by Kikinit
-- KK'n'D - Krush, Kill & Destroy <-- Courtesy of Rihiter(muhahaha). Maybe better for a Quake Clan or something I think ;)

I kind of like S.O.D.! (Sid's Our Daddy!)

- Norfolk 'n' good. <-- I wonder if they'd let us get away with that?
:rotfl: ..... Errr, No!

:rotfl: ..... Errr, No!Expected that but damn that was my favorite.

I don't know where you're from and how it sounds there, but if I say that to myself in a Geordie accent (North East of England) it's perfect.

I spent 6 months in UK last year and had some Geordie friends. Saying it to myself in their accent does sound just right. I'll have to see if I can find a more family friendly one. I guess this isn't a pub quiz.

Final item in the spamfest:

Geordie Windaz (http://www.biscuitsbrown.com/geordie_windaz/geordie_windaz.php)

In regard to patch 1.61, I thought of "peons, the nostalgic choppers"

"Failure diplomats" crossed my mind too

@Kikinit : scourge :lol: don't know if I can bear being called that

Thanks Mike and blid for the additional suggestions. I'll update my earlier post with any suggestions that are posted in the next few hours. We then have to make a decision before end of the 10th. (not sure if it's based on Alan's UK summer time or US time.)

I have another suggestion that I'll add to the list: KKK for Kikinit's Klan

10th is just when I hope to start the final preparations, so it's not a nailed down deadline. But it shouldn't be a hard decision either ;) Consider it British Summer Time (GMT + 1)

So how about the start guys? I was thinking of settling 1 SW. Plains hill would give us 1 extra base hammer in the city right? Gets the cows and 6 floodplains too.

Warrior movement won't do much to help us determine the start, unless we move him 1E and see if there is any sea resources out there.

Hatshepsut is spiritual and creative so we get free civics changes and fast border pops. We also have the war chariot UU. So as for our SG, we need horses asap and that means animal husbandry. We start with the wheel and agriculture so we are going to also need to go mining and bronze working quite early. As in our SG I guess that will mean the early religions will have to be taken rather than learnt.

So what do you guys think?

I don't mind on the team name, but as I have a vote I will vote for Team Sid's Our Daddy (no acronym!)

EDIT: Worked out which direction W and E are :)

if we stay at place we would have 8 (possibly 10) flood plains... and 4 (possibly 5) forests... not good if we chop.
Now, if we move on plains hill, there are 6 floodplains and at least 3 forests.
my vote goes: settler 1SW, warrior 1N
AH is a priority

What Zerror said.

Here are my 2 cents (dots) for the start

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/ibts/SGOTM01_start.jpg


Settling SW (red) will give us the extra base hammer like Kikinit pointed out, and would leave some extra space for the blue dot to lessen overlap.

Now this may be against the consensus, but here is my thoughts for research and build path :

EDIT (numbers are now for epic speed) :
Hunting (8t)->Animal husbandry(15t)->Mining->Pottery/Bronzeworking
Worker(18t)->Scout(11t)->Warrior/Scout->Warrior/Scout/Settler depends on map type

Gaythaar has made a special map and I think that early exploration can give us an important bonus. Thus the scout and hunting. The chance of getting some nice goody huts is also increased. Again if Gaythaar has left any
If we revert AH and hunting, worker would finish before hunting and we'll need to pull a warrior first thus loosing turns. AH would take 18 turns instead of 15 cuz we don't benefit of the second optional prerequisite modifier. In fact we are loosing only 5 turns on the turn AH is researched if we start by hunting.

If we start with hunting, worker can farm an FP before AH is researched and then pasture the cow


The numbers above are based on a city settled on plains/hill working an FP. Thanks worldbuilder


The choice between the second warrior/scout and pottery/bronzeworking depends on what we find : exploring finished ? Horses to tune ? all alone on an island ? HC at the doors and no horses ?
Remember victory condition : fastest dom or diplo. We need to know the surroundings and it may be different from KK02 four civs continent.

a bit off topic : I like "fistful of Dynamite" though I don't know the movie. Must have a different translation in french

Seems like the consensus is for the settler to go 1SW onto the hill. It will be interesting to see what he can see from up there. I think as soon as the save becomes available, we will have to shift the settler 1SW, warrior 1E and confirm what's out the west before settling.

blid, I like your reasoning for hunting first. An scout out after our first worker is good with me.

I also like the name 'fistful of dynamite' and have added it to the list with 3 votes (Rihiter, blid and Kikinit). Sid's our Daddy also has 2 (mike + sooooo) and ZerrorR has chipped in with Fractal Frenzy. I'll give it till tonight my time and then I'll let Alan know our choice so we can concentrate on the game.

I have one more idea for the name. I don't know if you have ever played that game and did you like it ( I loved it )... but it has a marvellous sounding short-form title, and even more marvellous sounding full title.... sit tight....


KK'n'D


Krush, Kill 'n' Destroy !!! buhahahah... buhahahahah.....
Ekhem.. I'm not crazy :crazyeye:

About the starting position. Due to the healt problem realted with the floodplains, we have to get those cows. So I think that the SW hill would be the best choise, especialy with the extra hammer bonus and grasland+hill S of it ( fast +1F +3H only with mining ). I think that I can also see another gras+hills S of the first one, and plain+hills W of the first one. So we will have lots of food from floodplains, hammers from hills and some health from cows, river and forests ( I see 3 of them I think ).

About techs... I think we should wait with that until we settle. Who knows what might be on the west. But due to those floodplains, it might be usefull to cotage few of them in the early stage of the game. And because we will have a lot of food, we should maybe reconsider slavery as a good strategy.

Edited the numbers to epic speed. The reasoning stand as is

Guess I better ask this question. Is everyone ok with me being the team leader for our team in this SGOTM? It was sort of implied in our SG from some of the posts but better to get it confirmed and out of the way now.

If we stay together for another SG then we can rotate it. (Leadership that is).

I also note that the Queen's men have appointed a scribe. Does anyone here think that's necessary at this stage? I know most of those guys (thru SG's) and they are quite creative so they'll be tough to beat in the rambling contest.

:salute: to the captain Kikinit
A scribe ? this is the guy that will report to the community our pathetic glorious advance ? Better not be me or you designate a scribe corrector

Idea of roster ? Will we make just the settler move SW and post here to discuss ? Is this allowed ?

As far as I can see blid, whoever is up first can download the save, move the settler and warrior and post a pic. Not much use in uploading the save until something's actually happened. So I guess it's yes it is allowed. Can't see how it's breaking any rules.

I think we can worry about a scribe when we need to report something. And lastly I have no idea of a roster yet. Got anything on your mind with it?

As far as I can see blid, whoever is up first can download the save, move the settler and warrior and post a pic. Not much use in uploading the save until something's actually happened. So I guess it's yes it is allowed. Can't see how it's breaking any rules.
That's OK. Just don't replay the settler move and do something different. Only play forward from the last position you reached.

I think we can worry about a scribe when we need to report something.
There are only two spoiler points during the game - a midpoint spoiler at a date to be defined - maybe around 500 AD, and an end of game write-up. No need for them both to be written by the same player, and no need to define your scribe(s) now.

I will go and download the save now, move the settler and post the pic so anyone who is at work can see and we can discuss this further before progressing.

Back shortly.

Righto then. I've got the save and have moved the settler onto the hill to the Southwest. I also moved the warrior to the hill to the East. I'll let the picture do the talking.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0031.jpg

And just in case you didn't know the settings, I took a picture of them too.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0030.jpg

I need to work out a roster. Any ideas let me know. I'll post mine in another message.

Roster - My thoughts on it

I have been through the sign-up thread and each of us indicated our comfortable level as:
-- Kikinit - Prince / Monarch (actually I indicated prince but can win 50/50 at monarch so I'll put P/M for me.
-- Rihiter - Emporer
-- Mike p - Monarch / Emporer
-- blid - Prince / Monarch
-- sooooo - Monarch
-- ZerrorZ - Prince / Monarch
-- Ralph_Jackson - Monarch

So what I am looking at doing is interleaving us based on skill (admitted at least) and following the weaker players with the stronger ones to fix their :smoke: moments.

So... here's my first run at it.
- Kikinit
- Rihiter
- sooooo
- blid
- mike p
- zerrorZ
- Ralph_Jackson

Anybody got anything they see being too out with that?

Hi there just checking in as I have met most of you in our SG's.

Team names and Roster all look fine with me, do we want to just run through our Ground Rules. A starter for 10 (although I am firmly in teaching Grandma to suck eggs territory here)

1. Aim for a within 24 hours got it and 48 hour play.
2. Autologger is a great tool but isn't a substitute for writing a report.
3. We ( personally I can guarantee it) will make the odd :smoke: move, tile assignment whatever. Team members should point it out when changing it and explain why (this is my primary source of learning) but Politely.
4. If in doubt there is absolutely no embarassment / criticism what ever for stopping and asking!! I will do it without :blush: and will pat people on the back :goodjob: for asking when they are unsure!
5. Lets circulate planned absences early so Kikinit can resolve any roster issues. Kikinit you do realsie that team captain will let you feel what its like on the other end of the :whipped: (only kidding). I am in India w/b 22nd May and in the US w/b 26 June so maybe out of the pocket then.

Starting position looks good on that Hill.

Inital Tech questions / options

1. Go for a religion? (I would say no, let HC found one then capture his holy city!)
2. AH - Pottery for early cottages
3. Or beeline to BW (mainly for Slavery with our :food: rich environment).

I am torn between 2 and 3 as both have merits , so what do the experts think?

Hi,
Roster and rules looks good with me.

Strategy:
That hill looks like a good starting position. We should try early cotages and rough slavery. After slavery reserch animal husbandry and fishing.
In the first city: worker, then wait for 2 popups (during that build worriors or something ), then wipe a settler. Make second city like is showed on the picture.
We should get cows, and then fishes to improwe our health.

Second city will be near our capitol, so there will be no maintance ( at the begining ). It will provide us with fishes, and it has many floodplains to, so we're be able to wipe some thing there to.

126435

I'll wait for a few more comments but I think the next thing to do is to settle on the hill. It seems to be what we expected. No more pleasant surprises were forthcoming. If I settle the city, the line of site will go back even more and we can talk about what techs and builds to do first.

I am looking at going 20 turns throughout the first round. That'll be 140 turns. At a guess I would say that'll get us to about 0 BC/AD??

It looks to me like another city location is 1S of the warriors present position instead of the hill as blid suggested earlier. The hill has 3 unworkable tiles whilst the desert square will only have 1. Nominally less overlap with the capital but food coming out of it's ***. 7 FP's + fish. Gyathaar has made this a very food rich starting evironment so it lends itself to a whiptastic start.

I am starting to lean towards getting bronzeworking first so we can whip quickly and get barracks ready. Then animal husbandry timed with a settler and connect up horses and then we're off to war. So my tech path would be Hunting -> Mining -> Bronzeworking -> Animal Husbandry. I agree with blid on getting a scout out quickly to see what's around so would leave Hunting first. I have not however gone and done the calculations for this like blid. Would our worker have enough to do while waiting?

Rihiter. Seems I cross posted with you. We seem to be in concurrence on a few things but can you spell out your early tech path for me? I see you mention cottages so you would do pottery straight away then bronze working?

My thoughts: I prefer Blid's well thought-out tech order. It delays BW as Kikinit points out, but I think we will still have BW by the time we need to whip. I feel BW before AH delays pasturing the cows too long.

I loaded up the save and settled the city on the hill to see what the surroundings are like and :D :D the location looks pretty good. Here's the screencap for discussion. The build times are shown too. [Screencaps are bigger than I normally do for clarity -- Apologies in advance to any who have small screens.]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0032.jpg

The city will grow to size 4 before we get health problems and 5 before we get happiness problems. We have rice and cows to help with the health.

I went and had a look at our tech choices and research times and they are as follows:
Fishing -- 8 turns
Pottery -- 14 turns
Animal Husbandry -- 18 turns
Hunting -- 8 turns
Mysticism -- 11 turns
Mining -- 11 turns
Bronzeworking -- 25 turns (after mining)
Here's a screencap of Thebes city screen.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0033.jpg

I haven't played yet as I wanted a bit of consensus on research as these first few turns are crucial to get the research and build orders right. My 20 turns will just be pressing enter mostly and the decision will be made here.

Seems like Gaythaar is really forcing our hands on :whipped: . I still think that exploring is crucial and hunting priority. I do however hesitate between AH and mining/BW.
If we don't go AH directly, we will still have it in time to check for horses before settling second city. The main loss will be the cows : this is 3F,3h,1C tile when improved. The best tile in the BFC.
The worker won't idle whatever the path I think. With agri and wheel he can live until AH or mining is researched.

OK, the rice changes everything. I now think we go for mining and BW before AH and Pottery. We have so much food that we need mines and slavery quickly to get some production going. The stone is excellent too. We definitely made the correct decision in moving!

How soon would we be able to whip anyway? We would want to get to size 6 before we whip the capital I would have thought. In the time it takes to get there, we should have both AH + BW or be close to it. I think we should be getting the cows connected up first as the 3/3/1 is too good to miss out on for too long and will be a big boost the earlier we get it connected up. And what tilts it for me is we need to know where the horses are for our UU. So for me, I've changed my mind to Hunting -> AH -> Mining -> BW.

A couple of ok's and I'll play the first 20.

I was thinking that mining was the more important tech, not slavery. Starting with agriculture, once we farm the rice we have enough food to mine all 3 hills. It's funny that we both started with opposite views, then both changed them after the save :). Maybe hunting, mining, AH, BW? Mining should go down in beakers after hunting comes in because many of the AI research it first.

Now I agree with mining being useful, but those cows are almost worth 1 mine + 1 FP. Not quite but it is the most productive cell in our BFC as blid noted.

I am going to play my turns now. Research. I am going to bite the bullet and do hunting then animal husbandry. AH won't be finished by the end of my 20.

Uneventful turns but we've met nobody and it's looking like an island.

(1)-3970BC -- The area to the south shows a lot of coast so I will explore north. Thebes first border pop will reveal the southern area in more detail.

(5)-3850BC -- Borders expand & we've got ocean to the northwest too. Warrior finds tundra to the north.

(6)-3820BC -- Warrior gets attacked by wolves and wins. Send him to forest to heal. The wolf had combat odds of 0 according to the log but he damaged the warrior to 1.0/2. I hope that's not indicative of our combat luck. Anyway, we won this one so I can't complain.

(8)-3760BC -- Hunting in and Animal Husbandry selected next.

(20)-3400BC -- Warrior has finished exploring the northern area and is moving towards the eastern area. I started a scout and he is due in 10. Thebes is growing again and will grow to size 2 in 10. This will drop a bit if we work the rice once it's finished. The worker is currently working the rice and should be ready to move over to the cows when AH comes in.

We haven't met anybody yet and this is starting to look like an island. May have an isolated start here and need to think about how we are going to deal with it.

The northern region of our kingdom to be.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0034.jpg

And the southern region of our kingdom.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0035.jpg

The spoiler shows the log copied from the upload page.
Turn 1, 3970 BC: Thebes has been founded.
Turn 1, 3970 BC: Save again to show capital's surroundings

Turn 4, 3880 BC: The borders of Thebes have expanded!

Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf (1.00) vs Fistful of Dynamite's Warrior (2.90)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Combat Odds: 0.0%
Turn 6, 3820 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fistful of Dynamite's Warrior is hit for 12 (88/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fistful of Dynamite's Warrior is hit for 12 (76/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (68/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fistful of Dynamite's Warrior is hit for 12 (64/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (36/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (4/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fistful of Dynamite's Warrior is hit for 12 (52/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (0/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fistful of Dynamite's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Wolf!

Turn 8, 3760 BC: You have discovered Hunting!

Turn 20, 3400 BC: Worker working rice
Turn 20, 3400 BC: scout in 10
Turn 20, 3400 BC: Thebes growing in 10
Turn 20, 3400 BC: Animal Husbandry in 4
Turn 20, 3400 BC: Met no-one yet. Worried this might be an island.
The save can be accessed from here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG001_BC3400_01.Civ4SavedGame) . This is the link to the official save from the gotm site. It's still worth going in to have a look at the progress page here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) as it shows you our progress and all the other teams as well.

Here's a roster. 20 turns throughout the first round with stops to dicuss important issues.
-- Kikinit - Just Played
-- Rihiter - Up for 20
-- sooooo - On deck
-- blid
-- mike p
-- zerrorZ (skip till 14/May)
-- Ralph_Jackson (upcoming skips 15-19/May and 26-30/June)

Hope this is not an island. So far, the only happiness resource is silver up north with no food around though there is still some fogged sea tiles. We might need a religion
I suspect the peaks to block an access to another continent
It is too early I guess to take decisions. Let's finish exploring first

EDIT : looking at the graphs, it seems like we were the only ones (from those who already started the game) whom did not settle in place

I too hope it's not an island. We need to get a coastal town and a galley going if it is. I too think that the mountains look like they are blocking another continent. There is definitely land on the Eastern side.

Yep, It might be an island, or we could be separated from others with those mountains.

But gentelmens... those cotages... they could be realy usefull... 3F + tons of cash = fast reserch + wiping. I think that we should reserch pottery and cotage 3 of those floodplains as fast as it's possible. About religion... I think about building The Oracle and geting code of laws this way ( confucionizm ).

So after animal husbandry I propose pottery.

I like pottery. Let's get our cottages maturing. We probably won't have to worry about getting pillaged. And floodplains will still provide enough growth for the whip.

My take is that there is no need to wait to whip things like library, granary, and possibly settler. We'll grow back faster from a smaller population, and most of our commerce will be from our palace rather than our worked tiles.

Rihiter, please post a got it and some timeframe of when you are going to play. This is the normal etiquite that we will try and play under for this SG. That is, 24 hours from the last persons turnset to post a 'got it' and then 48 hours to play for a total of 72 hours.

Your 24 have only just gone and as you've been here and posted, I will assume that you're not quite sure of the rules and give you some extra time. The reason for these rules is not to be a pain, but just to keep things flowing. You are always allowed to ask for skips if RL doesn't permit the luxury of playing CIV.

I like pottery too. The cottages need to mature early.
Now when looking at the capital, I see it can be a monstrous GP Fram.
FPs, rice, Cows, grassland and river/lake to farm and spread irrigation once civil service is in. There are hills and stone to help with infra and maybe plant a wonder or two. Forests also can be chopped to help with wonders though I prefer to chop settlers for early expansion
The bad news is lack of luxury resources (for now that is). Which means we can't afford to have many specialists running. So, in order not to be comitted in either direction, I propose to build the first two cottages like shown below :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/ibts/cottages.jpg


If capital goes GP farm, those tiles will be switched to the coastal city. And capital can work exclusively on farms/mines later


Concerning oracle, without marble or industrious, it is a bit of a gamble IMO on monarch, and we are heading for BW first. We will have many techs to recover before we can start building it
We can try to time the first great scientist with drama discovery to make him found taoism but this is a bit early

blid, those were my thoughts for cottages too. To get the rice irrigated, we would need to chain farms all the way as in my diagram (arrow) below. The city on a hill won't spread irrigation. I also indicated what I presume you would want made of the FP's to the W of the river. What would you do with the hills?

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Cottages.jpg

Should the future city on the coast be a commerce city completely surrounded by cottages on the floodplains?

This feels like one of those starts where there are 2 good options so it is hard to pick which line to follow, with the Golden Rule being commit to one and stick to it!.

1. Going AH - BW - Pottery means we get to Slavery quickly. With such a food rich start we can produce settlers normally and may want the Health from forests so the ability to chop feels less of a plus than normal.

Going AH - Pottery - BW lets us build cottages so that as we are working the floodplains we will also be generating long term commerce / research. On Balance this feels slightly better to me as unless we are chopping out settlers we won't be using the whip until we are buidling Granaries / Libraries meaning we can afford to get Pottery first and still have the :whipped: civic available when we are ready to use it.

Island.

Ther could be a whole load of land to the SW as far as I can tell (as the N edge is icy so bit early to tell if we are on an Island. I think not solely for the reasonI wouldn't set up a SGOTM like that 'cos Alone on an Isalnd starts aren't much fun!!

Ralph, you are right they aren't much fun, but maybe he set us up with HC just behind those mountains so we need a number of galleys to get over there? That would mean to get use of our UU we'd need to build a navy fast.

Rihiter's should be able to do a fair bit of exploring in the next 20 anyway to clear a lot of this up.

@Kikinit : Yes food all along the river. But I won't care about the plain tile. It won't give any food surplus and thus is marginal. We'd rather farm the FP north of cottage.

You are right about the irrigation. river won't help much with irrigating the rice. I haven't seen it first time. The arrow can be shorter as you don't need to pass by the plains/forest tiles. Can go diagonally like shown below :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/ibts/capImprovements.jpg


IMO, the hills start mines, maybe switch to windmills later. Still not sure about the reasoning here.
Coastal city can be a galore of cottages like you pointed out

Sorry for those 24h... I have compleatly forgoton about that... realy sorry. I will play tonight... that means somewhere around 23:00 or 00:00 GTM.

My proposition is:

Techs: fihish AH -> Pottery -> Mining -> BW ( during my 20truns, I will start mining )

126689
Improvments:after rice, I will improv cows, and then I will start cotages like is showed on the pic ( cotages are those red crosses ). I would like to do it this way, becaus we can use the second city to work on cotages when we will be needing to bost production in the first city.

Plans for production: after fihishing scout I will start a settler.

Scouting: I will scout the SW lands. When the scout will be finished I will return the warrior to the city ( he will scout the SE penisula? ), and I will send the scout to the SW for further exploration.

Those things I would like to do during nearests 20turns. I will wait few hours for some "OKs" and then proceed. If something is terribly wrong, please inform me quick.


Future plans:
Plans for the cities: I propose to make the capital our "science city" and build some wonders in it ( especialy those with stone ), and necessarily "The Great Library" (TGL). Building "The Oracle" is something worth trying.
The second city should be our "cash city", we should found a religion there and then try to build "The Great Lighthouse" and "Collosus". Though that could be a long shot due to small production rate ther.
Don't worry about irrigating the rice until we can see the whole situation ( especialy whats on SW ), maybe there is a river, and we will settle a city somewhere over there later.

@Rihiter: No problem. It's my job to offer a gentle reminder ;) .

The tech path you suggest sounds ok to me. I think once we get the city growing and a couple of cottages coming up we'll finish BW in time to whip. I also think we seem to be safe enough to whip out a settler asap.

I agree that the warrior should do the SE and the scout the (seemingly) larger Eastern area. Let's hope we run into someone very soon or we are alone as this is only a standard size map and the AI's shouldn't be too far away.

That discussion on irrigating the rice is a bit ahead of ourselves as we need Civil Service and we should have a few more towns by then. I do like to plan out the worker improvements like that for towns or I end up building all sorts of things and you and the other team members will be asking who's been having a :smoke: .

I think we are a bit starved of things to discuss. More exploration shall allow us to talk more on topic.

I like to get those wonders you mentioned but as blid pointed out we may struggle to get the marble ones in particular. The stone ones should be worth a try though.

Just clicked on who's online and noticed this thread on permanent alliances... may be worth looking into. I personally don't know much about them.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=164653

I havent play PA yet, so I don't know much about them. I also haven't attained cultur, spacerace, diplomatic -victory yet. I just like to kill'em all :D

OK, I'm playing the game... wish me luck ;]

Good luck Rihiter. Not much to do in 20 anyway...

I was thinking about wonders and with the stone and our spiritual trait as well as the production capacity of our capital, is it worth shooting for the Pyramids?

Ok...

- 3400BC ( turn 0 ) Let's roll...
- 3310BC ( turn 3 ) Buddism was founded in a distand land.
- 3280BC ( turn 4 ) We reserched HBR (pottery started-14t),we have horses not far to the N and... we meet Catarina (finical + creative)!!!
She has wisited us with her Scout. She doesn't have contact with Incas.
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- 3190BC ( turn 7 ) Worker finished farm over rice... movin him toward cows. Citizen moved to work on rice.
- 3100BC ( turn 10 ) Thebes have poped up (new citizen moved to work on cows) and finished Scout (I'm sending him to the S along the coast). Settler started (22turns now). Our Warrior have reached Russian Capitol's sorroundings...
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Looks like Catarina has some usefull luxuries... I think we will have to go for an early war (that's a pity... she's so sexy when she's angry... ;)),our WarChariot will be a great wepon.
- 3040BC ( turn 12 ) SW penisula. We have sugar.
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- 2980BC ( turn 14 ) Pasture is finished (13turns until our settler is finished). Pottery isn't finished yet, so I'm starting a road on cows.
- 2860BC ( turn 18 ) Pottery reserhed. Starting Mining-10t. Road on cows finished. Starting cottage number one. Borders of Thebes have expanded and we can see the SE penisula. Another health resource there - good news. And unfortunatley bad news - we are blocked with exploration until writting or even longer :sad:...
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- 2800BC ( turn 20 ) ...8 turns to mining, 7 turns to settler, 6 turns to cottage and I'm done.

Here we have a look at the russian capitol.
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Early war. I'm sure about it ;]. Watching the location of Moscow we can see how stupid AI is :D

The save file is uploaded and ready for next player. There are few more teams with score 111 at 2800BC so I thing that they have moved their settler to the hills to ;].

About The Pyramids... it might be interesting. It could work nice with the Great Library - we could turn gov civic to Representation ( medium upkeep ), 2x9RP = +18RP from TGL!!! And the additional happines... hmmm... but Pyamids cost 450H, that will be 225 for us ( the same as The Oracle). With Oracle we can get civil serwice very fast... and that is a real bost. We must think about it a little more. This is very inportand decision. Maybe we could manage to build both those wonders and then go for Representation + Beurocracy + Great Library ( that could be a realy interesting strategy ).

When Thebes will reach max happy population ( 5 ) we could build those wonders. Normaly cityzens will work on cotages, but at the moment when we'll want to start a wonder we could move all cityzens like this: rice 4F, cows 3F+3H, stone 5H, hill/grasland 1F+3H, hill/plain 4H, city 2F+2H = 10F ( needed for 5 pop ) + 17H. With 15H building Pyramids will take 14 turns, same goes for Oracle. During that other city might work on 2 cotages. And if we build a temple in Thebes first the third cotage could be worked to ( if not it won't be a disaster ).

But if we want to try to build both those improvments... we have to plan our tech path now. And plan it far far ahead.

mining -> BW -> Masonry (we are building quary then pyramids ) -> Mystycyzm -> Meditation -> Priesthood ( building Oracle ) -> Writting -> CoL -> Civil Service... is it possible to build both those Wonders? Even if we miss the Oracle, that strategy could be extremly good... Let us discus and decide :]

Excellent stuff Rihiter. I think shooting for The Oracle, The Pyramids and TGL is definately worth discussing as a potential strategy. To pull it off would put us in a fantastic position. We will have to try and estimate turns to research the required techs and to get the wonders to get all the timing right.

All the wonders are going to have to be built in our capital until we can get another city with enough production. I think a bit of dotmap discussion is probably in order now that we know most of our territory. I can see us needing to plant a city at the choke point between our peninsula and moscow.

The Roster:
-- Kikinit
-- Rihiter - Just Played
-- sooooo - Up for 20
-- blid - On deck
-- mike p
-- ZerrorR (Sorry about the Z instead of the R :blush:)
-- Ralph_Jackson (upcoming skips 15-19/May and 26-30/June)

I've had a couple of games where Permenant Alliances (PAs) were enabled. Normally they're fairly annoying for the human player. The AIs are quite happy to PA with each other, so by the late game most of them are coupled up, meaning starting a war becomes tricky. Forming a PA is interesting at first, but it gets frustrating when your partner does not do what you think is sensible. For example, in a war they can ofter leave a city poorly defended for no reason and allow it to be captured. You can tell your partner to attack a certain city, but there's no guarantee they will do it soon or with enough firepower. Your research is added together, but the number of beakers required for each tech doubles. It is therefore very frustrating when your partner has a city captured.

Different leaders sign up for PAs easier than others. When we know who we are facing this game I will look at the XML file to see which would be more likely to sign up. Obviously you need good relations, over +10 is required, and the score leader is usually unlikely to sign up because he/she doesn't think you are needed. Catherine is usually the easiest to sign up for a PA, but in this game it doesn't seem she will survive that long.

Oh, and I'll try to play this tonight. If the pyramids only takes us 14 turns to build on epic speed then it would be a waste not to build it IMO. We could certainly do with the +2 hapiness, and with the capital designated a GP farm the research bonus from Rep could be amazing. What does the team think about masonry before BW?

I will leave those with immediate access to the Stats to do the sums but if we are going for the PyramidsGreatLibraryOracle Super Hydra (if we succeed we must find a better name) then we have to

1. Work out the Optimal Research Path which is determined solely by what gets the Wonder built fastest. If that means a switch to Masonry straight after Mining and before BW then that is the path.
2. Be very clear and disciplined now about tile assigments for each turn again to bring the Wonder in a.s.a.p.
3. Effectively we need to lay out here exactly how long each step will take and then all stick to it and pause if an unexpected event throws us off course.

My vote is go for it subject to that detailed plan above existing. Our start is happy poor but food & cotage rich so if we can find a deep aggressive plan like the above things will be genuinely looking good.

Hope that makes sense, I would start to do the calcs but at work so I am afraid RL prevents me looking too much at CIV :blush:

So one always needs a contingency so what could throw us off course?

Catherine Attacking - Unlikely as long as we don't have a different religion
Barbs - Prior to wonder building mode will we have the military to suppress barbs, again need to look at how many units we need
BIDAL - A wonder being built elsewhere, feels unlikely for the first wonder as we have a good /civ and start for building them and will be committing 100%.

Ralph

Heya guys... I am back and ready to join...
I am doubtfull that we are going to make oracle in time. In most of my games on this difficulty level I was beat to it in 90% (COL slingshot). I would change oracle with the parthenon... if possible.

3. Effectively we need to lay out here exactly how long each step will take and then all stick to it and pause if an unexpected event throws us off course.

Could not agree more.

edit. It is ZerrorR ;)

I'm not sure that it's that hard to get if you prioritise it. It's when you go for Civil Service slingshot that it gets difficult to get. If we just prioritise the Oracle and accept a lesser tech like metal casting we would have a much better shot IMHO.

It is 7 turns to settler
I know we already identified a spot, but is it the right one with the wonderaholic strategy. I am thinking of settling second city to hook horses. If it is north, it will help to eliminate barb threat. If it can grab the two cows and horses, it will for sure be a prod powerhouse to pop a new settler quickly for the commercial city and go chariots next to visit the sexy lady
We can even consider starting oracle at second city before capital is done with pyramids
My reasoning is if we settle a poor prod second city and capital is focused on two wonders, we would loose a precious time to expand/go kick some heads/develop economy

Any dot mappage will be useful. I am at work and it would help analyze the situation

For pyramids, don't forget to take forests into account. Their chop value is doubled with stone so we can afford to sacrifice a couple of them before maths

blid, I threw together a couple of quick dotmaps for discussion. I have not spent a lot of time looking for the optimum and hope that by tomorrow there'll be some comments to adjust it a bit. Just realised that I didn't resize them from full size so they're going to be a bit big :blush: . EDIT: The images have been resized. And AlanH was even faster than I could resize them.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0041.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM1/Civ4ScreenShot0042.jpg

I'd settle the cows and horses next as you say. That would allow us to go for both wonders much easier and if we miss the wonders, we'll have 2 cities with good production and food. I just noticed that I made everyone a coastal city. We would also want to go for Colossus or Great Lighthouse with this arrangement.

Please try to limit screen shot width to 800 pixels. We don't all have wide screen displays

Sorry Alan. I had already gone and done it as they were too big for my screen too.

Thanks :thumbsup:

Thanks Kikinit. I like both orange and red. The first has access to FPs to get food and has a lot of hills. The second have also good food and prod and is coastal. This means we can get a workboat or a galley for exploring quickly
I will give it a futher analysis at home with a better graphic card

Well my plan was only!!!2 cities for a long time... ( localization like we planed at the begining )
Two cities with cotages which can be worked by each of them ( 2 of those cotages ). This will give us fast reserch, and tech adventage. I agree that we can skip BW, but knowing where the bronze deposit is might be quite useful. Especialli if it's some where near the 2nd city ( or even there where we planed to settle!! - that would be a disaster, but we cannot predict it ). But like I said we can skip this tech if we want to build Pyramids and Oracle. Maybe it will be better to skip, we must think it over.

About the plan. I see two options:
Plan A) "Pyramids+Oracle+TGL with representation & beurocuracy." -> i will call it just "Plan A"
Two cities. Placed like is showned on the picture.
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City1 (capitol) works the cotages, provide us with RP and grows to 5 population ( 6 if we build temple ). City2 grows to.
When we want to build a wonder we swich work in the City1 like this:
rice 4F, cows 3F+3H, stone 5H, hill/grasland 1F+3H, hill/plain 4H, city 2F+2H = 10F ( needed for 5 pop ) + 17H. If we have temple, it could still work the N cottage. During that City2 moves work to those 2 cottages which are free now ( to keep them growing and to provide us with RP ). And we build the wonder ( Pyramids, then Oracle.. etc... ).

If the pyramids only takes us 14 turns to build on epic speed then it would be a waste not to build it
Ofcourse I forgot about the epic speed. Pyramids are 675H ( not 450H ). But it doesn't change enything, if they are harder to build for us, then they are harder to build for other civilizations too. Same goes for Oracle.
So...
Pyramids - 675/34H = 20turns ( but if we want to skill BW, our capitol might not grow to 5 until we start building it so we must count more turns i think )
Oracle - 225/17H = 14turns ( still )

I am doubtfull that we are going to make oracle in time. In most of my games on this difficulty level I was beat to it in 90% (COL slingshot). I would change oracle with the parthenon... if possible.
Oracle is 225H ( 2x speed with marble), Parthenon is 600H ( 2x speed with marble ). If somebody has acces to marble, he will get even bigger advantage in building the Parthenon then when building the Oracle... IMO.

Tech tree would look like this:
Mining -> BW ( not necessarily ) -> Mansonary (build quarry and Pyramids )-> Mystycyzm ( maybe build temple if needed - remember that we are spiritual so it would be rather fast - but maybe building it after finishing Pyamids would be better ) -> Meditation -> Priesthood ( build Oracle ). -> Writing ( and two options here ) -> CoL??? -> Civil Service??? or Alphabet -> Literature ( build Great Library ) and then CoL and CS

More cities??? If the economy will take it with reserch rate still at 100% or min. 90%.
After getting those techs, trade with Catarina for other techs that we have skiped and then conquer her ( sorry sexy lady ).

Plan B) Two cities. Like is showned on the picture.
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And here is not much to discus. If we do it this way. We can stick to goals from Plan A, or go for an early war ( real early ), few WarChariots and conquere Catarina during nearest 1000 years. When I was near the capitol I saw 3 archers in it, so we would need at least 5-6 chariots I think. But if we are alone with Catarina on an island?? That would be a little weired, we will have no one to trade techs witch. Early war also might cripple our economy ( but there are many cash resources near Moscow, so maybe not ).

If we stick with the goals from Plan A, then I think that building city2 E of our capital ( like we planed ) will give us more cash and faster reserch. IMO.

Sorry for the lenght of this post.

I did my part in resizing the pictures
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g239/ZerrorR/Civ4ScreenShot0043.jpg

About playing tonight. Due to our first settler will be build in few turns, and decisions made now will have influence on the whole game...I propose to stop for 24h or something about that, and discus. We must have a plan what to do, long shot plan. So let us think a bit what to do, and then we will do it. There is no hurry.

I favor green spot 75% ie. plan A :)

Question?
What type of victory are we going for?

This first SGOTM will not feature any advanced variant.. the winner simply will be the team that wins the game at the earliest game date with either domination or a diplomatic victory.

Permanent Alliances are turned on (can form permanent alliances after either communism or fascism is researched)
Space race is disabled.
Egypt is locked into war with Huayna Capac of the Incas.
Egypt is locked into peace with an unknown civilization.

...So I it will be domination or diplomatic... ;] depends how the game will go.
Notice that we don't have to worry about the score!!!

About playing tonight. Due to our first settler will be build in few turns, and decisions made now will have influence on the whole game...I propose to stop for 24h or something about that, and discus. We must have a plan what to do, long shot plan. So let us think a bit what to do, and then we will do it. There is no hurry.

OK, I'll play when we have a consensus, be that later this evening or tomorrow night.

I personally favour Red Spot. Red spot is production/warfare related and Green Spot is commerce related. My preferred tactic when alone on an island with 1 other civ is to conquer them quickly. I think Red Spot will allow this easier, and will help with wonder building. Red Spot can build war-chariots and start the Oracle before the capital finishes the pyramids. Settling green spot will force our capital to build everything for us. Cottages take 8 (!) turns to build, we won't have enough worker-time to build them if we want to quarry and connect the stone and mine the capital's hills to get the pyramids quickly.

So far we have:

Rihiter - Green Spot
ZerrorR - Green Spot
sooooo - Red Spot
blid - Red Spot

The rest of the team?

Thanks guys for the maps and the discussion.
Rihiter, I will try to continue the reasoning on plan A and plan B (unless someone else comes with plan C).
There is a common path with capital :
- Techs : mining (8t)->masonry (17t) : total 25 t
- City : sttler (7t)->granary(18t) : total 25 t (granary can be replaced with barracks or warrior/warrior but I prefer to prepare to start building the infra)
- worker : cottage 1 (6t)->mine on plain hill (2movement turns + 7t) : total 15 t
- Growth : size 3 (14t)->size 4 (7t if working cottage 1) : total 21 t

Capital can start the pyramids at size 4 and the quarry hooked a few turns later

If we go with plan B, the worker can go hook the cows in northern city and then get back to capital to build the quarry

If we go with plan A, the worker can make the second cottage and then go mine the plains hills and then build the quarry

With plan B, the city north will be settled on turn 10, takes 7 turns to grow putting hammers in a barracks or building a warrior and then starts a settler at size 2 or when warrior is built to go settle green.

I will skip BW as we have horses. However, if we stick to plan A, it can be dangerous

I prefer to start with the red dot and settle the green asap after. This way, we have a backup to prepare for war with Cathy. I think that this is more suited to the variant. Fastest domination means go war early. Fastest diplo can be different as tech is far more important to get to mass media early. But don't count on Cathy to be a help here. We'd rather take her lands and vote for ourselves. Not that she is not willing to make friends, but she abuses them. She keeps asking for unreasonable things like expensive techs, free resources, stop trading with this guy cuz I don't like his mustaches. A capricious monarch she is

To be objective, I will admit that plan A gives us more chances to get oracle. I didn't make any calculations, but I think that the pyramids will be done before we discover priesthood. It's just that IMO, wiping Cathy early will be more beneficial than the slingshot.

Scout and warrior should go on unfog duty asap. We don't need barbs to come wreck our plans

I prefer to start with the red dot and settle the green asap after.
Well... that might be good to. But this way we must build the third city fast.

hmmm...
Plan C Red spot. Make few improwments near city1 so it would have some production ( mine/hill/grasland x2 for example - 2F will be useful or mine/hill/gr + mine/hill/plain ). Then go connect horses when city2 borders expands + pasture on cows. Quarry on stone. Start Pyramids, in city2 barracks then warchariots( or just chariots without barracks). When Priesthood reserched Oracle in city2, and when Pyramids finished, chariots in city1. Then fast war with Catarina. Money from pillaging well be used for further reserch....
But we must check what's behind Moscow... if we are alone on the island maybe It would be better to raze Moscow... , and if not alone take it.

This plan is rather chaotic, I haven't doen any counting. Just a bare plan.

Edit:And one more thing. We have to realy work those cottages, so even if we go for war, arfter war cottages shoul be the most importand thing ;].

Edit2: I have also one more doubt about early war ( with chariots only ). Moscow is on a hill and Catarina is creative so those archers have:
+50% city def. + 25% hill def. + 25% fortify bon. + 40% from culture allready! = 140%
3*2.4=7,2 and some of them could also have "city def." promotion.
Our WarChariots are 5 ( with combat 5,5 ). We will need atleast 2x more WarCh then there're Archers in Moscow!!! And remember that if we fail to take Moscow at the first try... we are in trouble.
Ofcourse we can count on withdraw chance, but that's lottery.

@Rihiter : in plan C, you won't make a settler at city 2 ? I was thinking of popping one for the green spot before starting the chariots
I also care about cottages :)

It's possible. But still... I have concerns about early war, it will realy cost us much. Both units and maintance after taking Moscow. So I think even if we use Red Spot... war could take us into troubles.

And one more thing which just bumped me in the head. Haven't you noticed that AI rather build Oracle first then Pyramids? That is why I propose reserching Mining -> Medit -> Priesthood... and start the Oracle first, then we can see how long Writin will take, if thanks to cottages not to long we could reserch it ( so we can take CoL as a free tech ) then -> Masonary and build Pyramids. Due to we have stone, we can beat other civs even then.

So my final proposition for this sesion is: Plan A with few changes
- Worker: finish cottage, another cottage, then a mine/hill/grasland
- Reserch: Mining -> Mistycyzm -> Meditation -> Priesthood ( we can also go through Polytheism but it's +4turns and I doubt that we will found hinduism )
- Settler: Green Spot
- Production: city1 -> finish settler, warrior (or first warrior, in case of the barbarians ), grenary | city2 -> pop up(11t), settler??? (22t)

Little counting to show you adventages of Plan A:
Now we have 10RP/t in city1, and 23RP in Mining (total 111)
5 turns - cottage is build, move cit. from rice to cottage, city1 12RP/t
2 turns - settler, go to green spot
1 turn - Mining ( we have 12RP/t in city1 )
1 turn - settle on green spot, city2 works the cottage, cit. in city1 moved back to Rice ( pop in 5t )
( city1 10RP/t , city2 3RP/t = 13RP/t , Mistycyzm 111/13=9t )
After another 5-6 turns second cottage is finished, newly popuped cit. from city1 move to work it.
Now we have: city1 8+2+1+1+1=13 | city2 2+1+1=4 total 17RP/t!!! ( or more due to the monarch bonus, I'm not sure how high it is ) But let us count 17RP/t. And remeber: the cottages will grow!!!
Meditation 178/17=10t !
Priesthood 133/18or19=8or7t !
Writing 268/19or20=14or13t !!!
So as you can see our reserch will be fast! And thats the most important thing at the begining!!! If we count monarch bonus it can be even a bit faster, and we can build monastery to ( fi wouldnt collide with wonders ) so even faster.

If we go with Plan B it won't be so fast, mainly because cottages won't be worked all the time!

I agree that AI gets pyramids later than oracle. Switching the order sounds fair to me. But it is a long ride before we have priesthood. We should think about what capital should do.
I still think that it should go granary after settler to help with the growth. Then it may be possible to pop a second settler/worker from capital before priesthood is discovered.
For pyramids, if we fear to miss it later, chop three forests

Go for red spot, make military and 2 workboats (one for fish and the other for exploring)

Tech : mysticism->buddhism->priesthood->writing/bronzeworking->COL/metal casting (free)->masonry->fishing

If we go this path, we surely need to research writing or BW before finishing oracle. Otherwise, we will be investing too much efforts for worthless techs

Settle green with a settler from capital while priesthood is researched.

I don't agree though about maintenance problems. Long term benefit is more important than the temporary slow tech pace during war.
And the gems will pay for moscow once we hook them (Iron working)

Please look up to see my countings ( their edited in my previous post ) .

Go for red spot, make military and 2 workboats (one for fish and the other for exploring)
Remebmer ( about those work boats ) that we don't have fishing and don't have time to reserch it.

It's 2:30AM at my place, I'm going to sleep ;]. Cu..

Wow there really is a lot to take in that discussion. Keep it up guys. This is the most important part of the game as it will lay our foundation for the entire game.

I think Rihiter has a good point that early war may be pointless here. Our UU is not going to be able to do much against fortified archers in a city on a hill with cultural defense as well.

I think that plan A will be best to go for. We should aim for Oracle to give us CoL. Then we can go for the pyramids after. We will only be able to build temples after we get to CoL's and may be able to squeeze one in before the pyramids to let the city grow +1 whilst the pyramids are being built. Town 2 can prioritise a settler at some point in the queue. It will have a fair amount of food so should be able to produce one ok.

I am concerned about barbs though. We have no defenses against them and will need to find some time to push our some more warriors to defend.

I like the new plan A as long as capital gets to build a second settler before starting oracle
capital : finish settler(7t)->granary(18t, city works cottage)->warrior(4-5t)->settler(11t?) : total=45t

I think that with this number of turns, the second settler will be ready before we have priesthood

Has anybody any idea how long the AI normally takes to get Oracle on this type of map at Epic speed. We can check our SGOTM for at least a guide. I really am quite busy at work at this point so it'll have to wait until tonight for me to check.

I'd like to hear Mike's opinion on all this. Our master strategist from KK-01 who engineered our Oracle run on that game should give his 2c worth.

Sooooo, I know you are probably itching to play, but it will have to wait until we are sure about what to do next. Once we are underway things will go faster.

EDIT: I meant SG - KK02 for a guide, not this game SGOTM1.

I like the new plan A as long as capital gets to build a second settler before starting oracle
I know that red spot is a realy good position (2 cows + horses) and you want to settle there as fast as it's possible, but whole strategy depends on max reserch and minimum maintance... which is imposible with 3 cities. If we have 2 cities, as long as their aren't both something like 4-5 population, or something about that, maintance cost is 0. If we build third city, maintance cost will automaticly turn to something like 3 or even 4. So I would rather build the settler like I said in city2 after popup. It would by finished, more or less accurate, during reserching writting... I think that would be the right time. Then settle right after CoL ( from the oracle ).

About when the AI finished the Oracle: I think it was something about 1000BC on patch 1.52. I'm not sure which date will it be with current time flow.
Even if AI will beat us to the Oracle, we can switch fast to mansonary and finish the Pyramids. Oracle isn't the "mine plan wonder", it's just a way to get CoL and CivServ. fast. If not with Oracle, we will reserch those techs normaly.

Firstly let me say how much I value Rihiter and others detailed planning. It is at the level I can comprehend but not yet perform so apologies for not diving into the deatil but it would probably be pure :smoke:

A few comments

Oracle - Is a turn advanatge wonder that gets you an early tech quick and free - valuable but with a short term value
Pyramids - Is a much longer term edge. I would be "relaxed" about missing the Oracle if we secured the Pyramids.

Red Spot - This is a good spot for a city but not a spot that we will "lose" in the short term. Therefore when we settle it should be determined by if it helps us achieve our strategy of Getting the PyrOraGLib Hydra or not. As far as I can tell it doesn't help and probably hinders (due to upkeep dropping research) so needs to be delayed until it is at least neutral for that plan which means when the enabling technologies have been researched and we are "just" building the wonders. Hope that makes sense.

The key drivers for our strategy are:-
1. What gets us the unlocking technologies first. This trumps 2 below as if we miss the Pyramids it will probably be because we started it late rather than an AI building it at a faster rate as with Stone they shouldn't be out :hammers: us in the building phase
2. Maximizing the production in our cities so we build at max speed.

For me Rihiter's Plan A satisfies these criteria, again thanks Rihiter as it is not a analysis that I could have produced but is one I am convinced by.

I agree I would like Mike P's comment having seen the strength of his strategic Insight in KK 1.

Ralph

One more concern... Barbarinas. We only have worrior now, so I think that we should build 2 or 3 worriors more ( skip the grenary for now ). With all the food near Thebes city will grow even without granary. And if barb will show up, worriors at first, archers then... all our plans can be ruined. Witch 4 worriors, we can feel quite securet for now ( until the 3city settelment, and having horses hocked -> WChariots ).

Rihiter, Just a quick one. You asked how to do those labels in the game. It's just Ctrl-S (or Alt-S can't recall here at work) and then it pops up a dialog to ask what you want to write and that's it. To remove it, just go Ctrl-S and click the cell that has a tag.

I think I am convinced about settling red spot delay to boost research
Concering the barbs, I think that it is more effective to eliminate them by unfogging the tiles.
The capital covers a fair amount of the south. Cathy may cover a bit of the SW. We need to concentrate on north. With the hills long sight, three units could be enough. We already have a warrior and a scout. We only need another warrior. But I agree he should come before granaray or barracks if you think the granary is not essential
What would green city start with ? it can care about the warrior while growing to size 2 and then switch to settler

We could use some of the tips here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159109

ZerrorR, I remember reading this in the past and thinking this is very anal but as I play more and more and get to higher levels, I find that you start to do a lot of it automatically. The worker trick is a waste of time to me and only works in the case that he mentioned.

The binary research is something I have started to do on a more regular basis in the earlier part of the games when it matters and you are at 70-90% research. I will run at 0 for 1 turn and then go to 100% until I can't afford it anymore and then back to 0 again. I am not sure of the benefit but it sounds reasonable to me.

Pre-chopping is another that is for me too hard. I will too often forget and end up putting a forest into the wrong build. There are a number of good tips there.

OK, I think most of the team has chosen to settle on Green Spot. I'll do that. As I understand it, we'll follow a slightly modified Plan A in my 20 turns. Let me know if this order is wrong.

Settle Green Spot. Green city starts a warrior until size 2, then a settler.
When mining comes in, start mysticism, then meditation.
Capital builds a warrior (not a fan of granary here). Then starts, errrr, a worker? We definitely need another worker before we go on a wonder spree.
Worker finishes a cottage, builds a mine on a grassland hill near the capital.

I'd like to play in about 8/9 hours.

Sooooo. It seems that Rihiter's plan has things mapped out pretty well for the builds, worker turns + research, but you know how it goes, something will pop up... Any problems, don't hesitate to save and come back to the forums.

For me, the issue you will have to watch is barbarians. Make sure that the warrior is always closer to the city than any barbarian can be because we've only got 1 and a scout. He would be best fortified in the city to get max. defense I think. I would like to see some warriors thrown into the builds wherever they can spare the time and hammers but put to the end of the queue when something with a higher priority comes along. At least until as Rihiter said we have about 4. And MM like you've never done before... although there will only be 2 small cities, so not much choice.. :p .

Good luck.

I'm flattered and all, but I don't think I'm all that great a strategic thinker. Tactically I'm good, and that's what the Oracle run was in KK-1. I looked around and saw that no one had built it and that our capital could push it out pretty quick. I'm surprised we pulled it off actually. I'm pretty good at improvising on the fly, but don't plan ahead much.

Looks like Rihiter has it all figured out. He could probably crush me at chess too!

I do agree with Ralph that the Pyramids are a long term advantage. But if we're cottaging, then Representation is probably inferior to Hereditary Rule, which isn't that far off. Universal suffrage could be useful in spots, since we're spiritual, I guess it's the pyramids are pretty useful. And we could use the great engineer to build the Great Library and then spawn several great scientists.

If the Oracle can get us a religion and GPP for a shrine, then that's pretty good too.

Let's remember, victory condition is earliest domination or diplomatic. Either way it would be nice to eliminate Russia before they make any friends.

OK, so if we agree to "Plan A ver.2", I will write it down one more time for complete comprehension:

- Worker: finish cottage -> build another cottage on tile to the N -> build a mine on hill/grasland
- Reserch: Mining -> Mistycyzm -> Meditation -> Priesthood
- Settler: Green Spot
- Production:
city1 -> finish settler -> warrior -> warrior? (if needed) -> start grenary
city2 -> warrior ->settler (22t)

[u]Tips:
0) Return warrior to the city fast
1) When cottage1 is finished move citizen from rice to that cottage ( remember that the improvments are finished 1 turn befor the worker which is building it can move, so watch out for that! )
2) When city2 is settled, that city should worke cottage1, and the cityzen from city1 should return to work on rice ( for faster pop up )
3) After finishing cottage2 and Thebes pop up ( to population of 3 ), order the new citizen to work on cottage2
4) Be extremly alerted ;] , and check everything twice ;]

Good luck Sooooo.

OK, I'll do exactly that. Barring barb problems of course :)

We could use some of the tips here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159109
We will, we will. But during those 20t there is no oportunity to use any of that. Simply because we don't have any bonuses yet ;] , and our worker is moving only 1 tile or going to a hill.

I stick to Rihiter's plan. Except for one (minor) thing which I will discuss later.

Catherine founds her second city here. It is on top of the gems and not on a hill.

EDIT: As Mike P points out, it is on the hill to the W of the top gems.

http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/4694/sgotm2cat21hs.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

2650 BC (Turn 5) Cottage finished, worked

2620 BC (Turn 6) Start a cottage 1N of the previous one

2590 BC (Turn 7) Hinduism FIDL. Thebes completes a settler, starts a warrior.

2560 BC (Turn 8) Finish researching mining, start mysticism

2530 BC (Turn 9) Found Memphis on Green Spot. It starts a warrior. It works our cottage and Thebes goes back to working the rice.

2500BC (Turn 10) For some reason the game informs me that I've connected Memphis with our capital. I cannot work out why because it is not on a river and we do not have sailing. I do not complain, because it is receiving cows (+1 health).

2470 BC (Turn 11) We're the 7th most advanced Civ. Guess who's top? Yes, it's our arch-enemy HC. Guess who's second? Catherine. Thebes finishes a warrior. I see a barb warrior to the SW so it starts another warrior. We're too early in the game for it to attack, but it's only a matter of time before it will.

2380 BC (Turn 14) Catherine researches writing and asks for open borders. I agree, because it would not help us in terms of expansion to refuse and I want the +ve first contact bonus with her. Thebes is size 3 now. The 3rd population works a cottage which had just finished. Worker goes to a grass hill and mines it.

2350 BC (Turn 15) Finish mysticism, start meditation. Warrior finishes in Thebes, options are barracks and granary, both due in 18. The MASTER PLAN informs me to build a granary, but I figure a granary won't be done before Thebes gets to size 5, when we will have to halt growth anyway. The health limit in this city is higher than the hapiness one (fresh water bonus). A barracks is started because it will need one by the time we connect the horses.

2260 BC (Turn 18) Catherine revolts to Slavery.

2200 BC (Turn 20) This is where things get interesting. Memphis pops to size 2. However, it is now unhealthy by 1 point. A settler here will take 38 turns. I select this option, but there are no hammers invested. The hill at Thebes completes. Since Thebes and Memphis are (strangely) connected, I think we should continue with the settler and build two roads to connect the rice to Thebes. This will speed up the settler because Memphis will no longer be unhealthy and can put extra food towards the settler. If I had been thinking properly, I would have made the road before the mine to get the settler out quicker, but I did not even consider a size 1 city being at its health cap. The pop to size 2 now means we are losing 1GPT, so on the next turn we will be at 90% research (0 gold in kitty!). We could oscillate between 90% and 100% in the next few turns, but Thebes is due to grow next turn so that may change our maintenance too.

Our cities, can anyone figure out why Memphis is connected and receiving cows?:

http://img279.imageshack.us/img279/2747/sgotm2thebes7xb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/3848/sgotm2memphis5ic.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Meditation due in 3, worker just finished a mine. We have 2 warriors in Thebes and 1 warrior in Memphis. Our scout is fog busting in the north. I did not bother to fog bust in the south, because hopefully the barbs that spawn there will attack cathy's second city which should be closer.

A lesson learned: A plan for the turns is a good thing, but don't let is preoccupy your thinking. If I was being more careful I would have spotted the health cap of 3 at Memphis in time for the two roads to be built. The mine could have waited. Now our third city will be delayed by a couple of turns. At least the barracks will be done quicker.

Looks like Cathy's second city is not on the gems, but on the hill to the west, otherwise the coast would be within her cultural borders. It's not like the AI to settle directly on a resource.

I just got screwed in another Succession Game I'm playing in when a city got hooked up to my trade network mysteriously. Instead of using overflow from the whip to put out a quick, much needed, warrior, we got a couple of turns of progress towards a too late to arrive axeman. I think it might have something to do with the 2nd city being adjacent to the first's cultural borders, but I could be wrong.

Good decision on not building grenary ( it can wait ). The options were another warrior or barracks ( you chosse barracks - good for you ). Using 4 units will alow us to use blids idea ( unfogin foged tiles ) so we don't need another unit.

Health problem in Mepphis with pop 2... ugh, hard one. Didn't see that coming, sorry.

I still think that minin those hills is more importand then health in city2 and another settler. When we finish Priesthood we need to change production to Oracle imediatly, and reserch Writting. Thats the prioryty. To do that we need some serious hammers in city1 and fast reserch ( no trird city until finishing Writing then ).

About -1 maintance, I think that we can use binary reserch ( or not due to we don't have any bonuses to cash or reserch yet. I don't know does BinRes have enything to do with dificulty and map size modifier ).

Why Thebes and Memphis are connected? Hmmm... maybe because of those two rivers are 1tile to each other in one place? Maybe because there is an aera around river delta which sreads :traderoute:. Or maybe something else.

About HC, I think that map author have bosted him a little on the start ;] , or he has an extraordinary starting position :D

Summing up: Good job Sooooo :D

According to Progres Graph... I think that we have the higher score on 2200BC (among those teams which have reached this year). :] goood... ;]

Got it. Well done sooooo. I also agree about barracks.
I would try to play tomorrow, late so Kikinit may already be awake ;) . Keep to plan concerning buildings and research.
There is something however I'd like to change.
I would not have put two warriors in capital. If you can manage to have 0 fog tiles, you have 0 barbs. I don't use defense strategy cuz the fortify bonus is no good if barbs just pillage all around and leave city alone. If we loose improvements, we won't make in time
If you cannot afford 0 tiles in fog, the least you have the better. You can rush a new unit if there is emergency. Our capital can pull a warrior in 2 turns.
What I think : I would put the warrior at Memphis on the desert hill next to mountains (BTW, we can see now that there is no land behind these).
Another warrior from capital would go on the hill N of horses. And the scout should visit Cathy cuz I understood we signed OB
If you think I am :smoke: :smoke: , just tell me and I will abstain

Concerning scores, if you check the graphs, you can see that there are two curves that don't start at 4000 BC. These are ours and Xteam. So I guess we and Xteam are the only ones who did not settle in place. I thought that plains/hills spots were very popular. Anyway, I don't regret that we moved

You are correct about the 2 warriors in the capital. I kept him there in case the barb warrior decided to attack. But we can probably lure him into attacking our warrior in a forest or something.

Well... I did some thinking and we must change our plan a bit...
Main reason: we will finish Oracle far before we will connect the stone. That means that we will loss a lot of production when building Pyramids ( we will have to build it without stone which means that our building will be much less effectiwe - in my opinion to have 100H or don't have 100H is a loss of 200H :D )

So what I'am proposing?
Simple, change reserch right now to mansonary. We will finish it and hook up stone quite fast. It has one more adventage: we have 2 techs which leads to mansonary and 1 which leads to meditation, so when finishing mansonary we can use that trick with tech jumping.
Ofcourse changing to mansonary will slow Oracle a bit ( 6-7 turns ), but we are reseching so fast, that I think that we will make it even with that.

With this plan we have little less chances to finish Oracle, but much bigger chances to finish Pyramids ( I'm afraid that if we skip mansonary now and don't hook up the ston we can miss them ).

My plan is ( Plan A ver.3 ) :D
- worker: move to hill/plain, mine -> move to stone, quary! -> road -> move to forest, road ( and we have the stone hooked and +2H on the stones!!! so after this Thebes will produce: 10F + 17H!!!)
During that Thebes will pop up to 5, mansonary will be finished. City2 will start work both cottages. City1 will maximise production and start Pyramids (work on: cows, rice, hill/gras, stone, hill/plain = 10F + 15H optimal configuration)
After finishing quary Thebes will produce: 10F + 17H!!!

When the Priesthood is finished, Thebes immedieatly changes production to Oracle ( 225/17 = 14 to 15t , probably 15 because quary will be finished during the building Oracle, so Thebes will produce only 15H for some period of building it ). When we finish Oracle ( CoL as the free tech ) we return production in Thebes to Pyramids with double production due to stone, and we finish it quite fast ( I think that this strategy will alow us to build both those Wonders ).

During that both our cottages are worked all the time be the city2, so they grow!

So tech tree should be: change to Mansonary immediatly (use tech jump trick when finishing mansonary ) -> finish Meditation -> Priestnood (tech jump trick )-> Writing (tech jump trick ) -> CoL (from Oracle) ->...BW? ( to choop some trees to finish Pyramids in time if needed )

Worker actions should be: move hill/plains -> road -> move to stone -> quary -> road -> move to forest -> road ->... might hook up rice then

Please read this post carrefuly and you will see that this way is the most efectiv way, and we need to be most efectiv as we can.

Things are looking like they are almost going to plan. We have to plan that something will go wrong. For those teams that settled in place or even moved into the floodplains further, their capital will be having big health issues, even more than our 2nd city.

blid, I'm not sure what you mean about only 2 teams starting at the 2nd turn. I think Xteam and us are the same in that they uploaded the save after they moved on the first turn. In fact, I saw their graph go like that from 4000BC to 3970BC and realised that they had uploaded the save so I did the same. They are veterans at this SGOTM game so I presumed they knew what they were doing. In fact, at the end of 20 turns, we were 111 points. There were at least 5 or 6 IIRC teams at the same score and a number with slightly higher. That would suggest to me that those on 111 moved and those with slightly higher settled in place (or moved 1 square on the flat).

Having said all that, the score is not our goal in this game. In the early part though, it will give us a guide to how we are going research wise compared to the other teams. Once we get further in, we should start comparing things like power and maybe culture to tell us land area.

Do we have enough for a 2nd worker to do. Would we be better to put a worker in front of the 3rd settler?

I also sugest a little pauze in our SGOTM...
Until May 18 :> ....
That is because you probably want to play tomorow evening... and tomorow evening is the 17 of May! Everybody who is from Europe knows this date...
... it's Champions League Final!!!!!! FC Barcelona vs Arsenal London!!!
And after that... all night celebration :D

So if you don't mind please wait with the game until May 18 evening... until then we can discus futher strategy some more, and think what to do, etc...

Please... please... ;]

Off-topic:
Last year's champions league final was the most enjoyment I've ever had watching a game of football. I was in Manchester and sat in a pub with about 1/2 the people supporting liverpool and the other half choosing to support whoever liverpool played (no disrespect to Milan). At 1/2 time of course all the liverpool fans were making excuses like mad... but by the end, the whole pub was jumping...

This year, I'm back in Singapore and the game is at 2 or 3am in the morning... argggh..

Rihiter, I can see your point. Starting pyramids without stone hooked is a waste of time. But delaying oracle now is delaying pyramids too. What do you think of researching this path :
meditation->priesthood->masonry->writing->COL(free)
The tech advisor says 7 turns for masonry and 10 turns for writing. Once priesthood is in (third optional prereqisite modifier for writing) and cottage 2 grows to hamlet, maybe we could even get writing faster : 9 turns or optimistic 8. This means we would slow oracle building by 2-3 turns to time it with writing discovery
This way, we can start pyramids with stone and delay oracle of only 2-3 turns instead of 5-6 turns. This is rough estimations and I hope there is not a big reasoning hole there due to :sleep: time

@Kikinit : okay, I misunderstood the funny graph start of our curve and Xteam :blush: . It would have been really strange if only two teams went checking the plains/hills spot

No problem with the delay. And :hmm: I was not aware of the final

Well... mansonary will give us +2H when building Oracle to. And with mansonary, then meditation and priesthood and then writhin we will be able to use "tech jump" quite efectively.

I'm quite sure that we will build the Oracle, becuase we will have priesthood realy fast ( even if we go throuth mansonary first ). But I'm starting to worry about Pyramids...
I conted it quite presiously and Oracle/mansonary/stone/production doesn't fit... We will have quite big wast. First of all because when we finish the barracks we will have no wonder to build ( and we don't need more units nor granary ). Second, because we will start Pyramits late ( after Oracle ) and without stone... ( it won't be at time :\ ).

So I propose, reserch mansonary right now, finish it at the time when Thebes pops to 5, and mines are finished. Change production to max hammers and start the Pyramids, then change to Oracle ( finish ) and change back to Pyramids. This way we won't wast no hammers on not needed warriors or buildings, and then we will have +2 from stone while building Oracle, and 2x build speed when finishing Pyramids.

We don't need another worker. This one which we have will do all the tasks in time. We must hurry with those wonders realy, because our strategy depends on them. Remember that!

off topic...
No problem with the delay. And :hmm: I was not aware of the final
Well... if I remember it right, it is going to be played in Your city! Paris ;] ! "Stade de France" stadium or something like that. And You weren't awere.... shame on You... ;]

Rihiter, I think if blid is not a football man and has the time to play, the plan is mapped out good enough for him to do his 20. He indicated in KK-02 that he might need a bit of a delay before he can play anyway but I'll let him speak for himself.

I'll post a roster as I haven't posted one since post 61 and since sooooo finished his turns.

The Roster:
-- Kikinit
-- Rihiter
-- sooooo -- Just Played. Keeping the plan going.
-- blid -- Up for 20
-- mike p -- On deck
-- ZerrorR (Sorry about the Z previously instead of the R my brain just read it that way.)
-- Ralph_Jackson (skip 15-19/May and upcoming 26-30/June)

Final in Paris ? No ones spoke of that at work, that's quite unusual.
Anyway, I don't have tickets to go see the final at "Stade de France" so this settles matters.
I think Rihiter wanted the delay to push the refelxion further, but If we are ok on the plan, I can give it a go tonight

The swap pyramids->oracle->pyramids is a good idea. I need to go check this tech jump trick before I play cuz I never used it before (or maybe inententionnaly, It is in the link ZerrorR posted right ?)

Tech jumps will go like this:
1) When finishing Mansonary ( 1 turn left ), decrease the science rate, that it would be finished in 2 turns ( using max science rate possible to do that ). In effect next turn the mansonary will be almost "full" ( few bakers left ). Change science rate back to 100% then. All the overflow will go to Meditation multiplied with bonuses from Mansonary ( we have 2 tech which leads to Mansonary, one is additional so we have *0,2 bonus, and only one which leads to Meditation ).
2) When finishing Priesthood ( 1 turn left ), turn the science rate to minimum which will allow us to finish it ( because we have only 1 tech leading to Priesthood, and 3 which leads to Writting ). So if we spend bakers to the overflow, it would be a waste ( it's better to get some cash with science rate < 100% ).
3) When finishing Writing situation is similar to finishing Mansonary... ( 3 techs leads to Writing and for example only one leads to BW ).

Beside that use the Binar Reserch rate, for example during your first turn ;]

I hope that will help a bit, and sorry if I'm explaining to You something what you know well already :] .

If blid is willing to play tonight It's ok with me ofcourse. If you want to follow Plan A ver.3 and something is still unclear... just write and I'll try to explain or think it out. Good luck.

Off topic... Go Barca!!! GO!!! ;]

Tech jumping is explained in this post
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=158330

I have a query of the group, especially those who haven't played their turns in this round of turns. Would it be better to switch to 15 turns after blids turns so we can keep an eye on this critical time? It would let Rihiter and blid who are doing most of the directing at this stage monitor a bit more closely.

I am also reviewing what other teams have done and see that most have are playing 15 or even 10 turn sets during this time. I have to be careful though not to read too much into the graphs.

With 7 people, 20 turns throughtout the whole first round is maybe a bit much.

Off-Topic: Go Arsenal :D!

It is no problem with me... I want this game to be perfect. and so far our master strategists are doing just fine... since we are first on the 60th turn I have no objections. Speaking of charts... we are a bit low on military, other things are just fine and better. Culture: two other teams have settled on 65 to 70 turn, so we are not behind, and I think one has gone for early religion. ofcourse this is not definite, just my interpretation of the graphs.

off topic: go RED STAR!!! :D

My priority would be "playing it right" and I will be happy to play a smaller turnset to get things right!

Ralph

Thank you ZerrorR for the link and Rihiter for the explanation about tech jump. It was clearer than original post :)
Now with the practice :
Turn 0 : binary science. Research set to 0%.

Turn 1 : back to 100%. 18 gold in treasury. -1 per turn. Worker goes to plains/hills. Research set to masonry, due in 7 turns. Start redeploying troops, should have done that on turn 0 :smoke:

Turn 2 : a warrior appears from the fogged tiles north of Memphis

Turn 4 : Our warriors are north cleaning the fog

Turn 6 : The barb warrior attacks our warrior on the hill with 24%. Looses and our warrior is unwounded. We get xp :D . I don't use it to promote. I guess we'll need a woodsman eventually but no hurry here

Turn 7 : Research holding. Slider at 30%

Turn 8 : I switch to the plains/hills mine from grassland mine as it doesn't affect growth. Worker heads to stone. Masonry and growth are due in 1 turn. Now to get the research carry over. Set to 100%

Turn 9 : Judaism is founded.
Warriors are settled on fog bust duty

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/turnset1/warriors-position.jpg


I think that this is the max cover we can achieve. There are 3 fog tiles and the warrior can move to attract barbs. Carry over is 111 beakers for meditation. I think this is a fair amount.
City reach happy cap at 5. Switch to pyramids. Max prod working the hills/mine and the bare stone
City 2 relays capital at cottage 2
Pyramids due in 45 turns. Worker start quarry. 9 turns to finish


Turn 10 : Research holding again at 10%

Important : stonehenge is BIADL, it is 1870 BC. Don't know how early this is, but I suspect a wondermongerer is among us. He must be industrious. Need some care here with pyramids. I think that the forest chops will be mandatory

Turn 11 : Discover meditation and priesthood is due in 6 turns. We have 40 gold. All this tech jumping stuff have us a lot of money

Meet St-Petersubrg. Two archers.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/turnset1/meetStPetersbourg.jpg


Turn 12 : Meet Moscow

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/turnset1/MeetMoscow.jpg


Turn 13 : a barber appears from the silver tile north

Turn 14,15 : :sleep:

Turn 16 : Research holding again. This time on 50% to get priesthood with minimum carryover this time.
Meet Novgorod. Cathy third city

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/turnset1/meetNovogorod.jpg


Turn 17 : Quarry is done. Pyramids due in 32 turns. Slider back to 100% science

Turn 18 : Priesthood is in. Switch to oracle. 14 turns to get it. Writing due in 8 turns. Worker starts road on stone. We don't need the stone now. I tried to calculate how many turns would be necessary to go road the rice to city first and then get back to road to stone. It is more than 14 turns due to forests and hills loosing movement points. So I start the road on the stone already

Turn 19 : :sleep:

Turn 20 : we know the whole continent.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/turnset1/theContient.jpg


Not that great. We need to get out of here soon. Lot of health and food. But very poor on happy stuff. Only gems (I already see those as ours :) ) and silver on a crappy site north. Cathy did not found any religion. Getting confucianism and representation is really key
The barb warrior is dancing north and won't go south. We have two warriors blocking his way
The fog south near the sugar annoys me :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM1/turnset1/barbPotential.jpg


We have two mines and the rice south. Can be a pillaging spree for a barb archer. The scout has finished his duty exploring south, he should get home and do some fog busting duty

We have time to spare between writing and oracle construction. Writing would be researched in 6 turns and oracle is due in 12 turns. Bronzeworking can be researched in 11 turns so we can pull Metal casting, which has a bigger cost than COL with oracle and gets us closer to optics. I am putting this to expose situation, cuz personally, I think that getting a religion is more useful in this situation. We need the happiness and the money from a shrine is always welcome.
If we keep to plan, than we can switch to archery and get back to writing and still manage to get it on time with orcale building. Archery can give us a backup in case of an unfortunate apparition (barb axe ?)

Now, I am going ahead of myself with this one but I'll talk about it here before I forget. I thought that the best thing we can do with the silver spot to grab the extra happiness (someday in the future) is to settle on silver directly. This way, it is hooked, and the city can grow working the sea tiles until happy cap and then work tundra/hill/forest until one more happy is available, then rinse, repeat. Trying to get the money from the silver mine means the city stays at size 2. Getting a size 8-9 city working the sea tiles is far better

Here is a link to the save from the progress page :
1570 BC save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG001_BC1570_01.Civ4SavedGame)

Good luck for next one. And talking about next, here's the roster :

The Roster:
-- Kikinit
-- Rihiter
-- sooooo
-- blid -- Just Played.
-- mike p -- Up (for 15 ?).
-- ZerrorR
-- Ralph_Jackson (skip 15-19/May and upcoming 26-30/June)

Excellent blid :thumbsup: .

I too think that we have to get CoL's for the religion and happiness that can come with it if we get to the Oracle first. Chopping those forests for the pyramids should be done as we have enough health bonus's around but we should calculate the immediate effect of the health as we chop.

When we do get to settling our next city, I think we are going to have some competition in the neck area of this large island as Cathy is going to be looking for more land soon.

Thanks for doing the roster too.

On techs, I agree with blid's call to aim for CoL for our free tech. I also think that throwing in Archery before writing would be very wise to give us a better emergency capacity in case we do get a barbarian axeman appear somewhere. I would expect to see barbarian archers first though.

I would expect our research to go Archery -> Writing -> BronzeWorking (finally). We still need to see where the bronze is to determine our next city placement. I would put my money on the bronze being to the west or SW of the rice near our capital as it seems a bit bare there.

Got the save. I'm looking it over now.

I'll probably reposition a warrior to bust more fog up north, with our latest border expansion it looks like the warrior on the hill can move north to the next ridge and have full coverage and eliminate one tile of fog. You can see a hill from atop another hill two tiles away, correct?

As for research, we should stick with writing, then BW, Oracle for COL (hopefully). Then fishing to make our second city totally whiptastic.

Worker orders - obviously we need to hook the quarry up to the capital. After that it's a toss up. We can either eke out another commerce by farming a floodplain and working that instead of the rice, or we can hook up the rice. By the time BW is done we'll need to start chopping. If I hook up the rice fast enough, the settler might be done before my turns end since our 2nd city has unhealthiness problems.

Speaking of the settler - where should he be going? Do we choke off Catherine's expansion even it means taking a crappy site? Do we settle in the best overall spot - probably the two cows, horse and fish? It's probably premature to settle on the silver. We'll hopefully have Confucianism and temples, and hopefully have the Pyramids for either Representation or, even better if we aren't running specialists, Hereditary Rule.

I'll also try to remember to do the tech jumping thing when writing is almost complete, even though my opinion of it is that it's explotative and tedious micromanagement and I don't ever bother with it in a SP game. But I'll take one for the team!

After Oracle, should I start a second worker? How long would it take him chopping to break even on the Pyramids? Even if it adds a couple of turns, if we still pull it off we'll have a much needed second worker to get a jump start on developing the third city. But I won't try this unless others think it might be a good idea too. Edited to add: I'm thinking not, since it would take 6 turns to push out another worker, and the one worker should be able to chop as much as we're willing while the pyramids are building anyway. If we were clear cutting a second worker might, might, make more sense.

I'll play Friday morning before work, since tomorrow night after golf I may not be quite entirely sober. So give my orders before then. Though if golf gets rained out I may play tomorrow night.

blid, that sugar is also a happiness resource so we have silver, sugar and gems.

Good work blid. More comment when back from university :].

I'll probably reposition a warrior to bust more fog up north, with our latest border expansion it looks like the warrior on the hill can move north to the next ridge and have full coverage and eliminate one tile of fog. You can see a hill from atop another hill two tiles away, correct?


if you can unfog more tiles than no problem. But if a forest goes into fog, it's no good. In the current position, if a barb appears from forest, the warrior can get to him in one move and try to lure him. He can be promoted to woodsman and have +75% defense bonus


As for research, we should stick with writing, then BW, Oracle for COL (hopefully). Then fishing to make our second city totally whiptastic.


With tech jumping, we can have BW quickly, but if we don't have bronze we can't use it for defense. Warriors will be having a hard time defending improvements against archer barbs


Worker orders - obviously we need to hook the quarry up to the capital. After that it's a toss up. We can either eke out another commerce by farming a floodplain and working that instead of the rice, or we can hook up the rice. By the time BW is done we'll need to start chopping. If I hook up the rice fast enough, the settler might be done before my turns end since our 2nd city has unhealthiness problems.


prefer to hook the rice for health sake



Speaking of the settler - where should he be going? Do we choke off Catherine's expansion even it means taking a crappy site? Do we settle in the best overall spot - probably the two cows, horse and fish? It's probably premature to settle on the silver. We'll hopefully have Confucianism and temples, and hopefully have the Pyramids for either Representation or, even better if we aren't running specialists, Hereditary Rule.

No choking IMO. I'd rather say let her come. This will save us the trouble of building a settler. Horses, horses :)

Off topic :
blid, that sugar is also a happiness resource so we have silver, sugar and gems.
Thinking of it, Sugar sure makes me happy but don't help with health :mischief:

Do we need Writing that fast, you could use just the overflow for writing (+1.6*beakers), and then on the next turn start BW. For BW we dont get any overflow, and I think it is better get that bronze for upcoming war... It seems to me I'll do the dirty work fighting Russia... and I hate it (IRL my mother is Russian). Oh, well... what to do... If I have to fight, then I'll fight...
@Mike p: pls when you finish post overall status of the empire, ie. cities, surroundings etc.
Edit: @all: I can take save monday evening earliest and post it the day after

Game session was nice, good job. One thing was only not proper, tech jump betwen Meditation and Priesthood. It was just unneeded ( both those technologies had equal multipliers ), so I was just unnessesary ( 1 turn wasted ), but nothing happend ;] ( cash will help to avoid turns wast in the future )

Aboute the future... I think that after Writing we could reserch BW fast, so we could choop some forest when building Pyramids. And then Fishing, due to our rich sea food environmant :]. What later... we will see.

So in reserch I propose: finish Writing (tech jump)-> BW (tech jump)-> fishing...

About worker actions, first we must connect stone, then rice. So:
-> move SE to forest -> road -> move SE to hill/gras -> road -> move SW to rice -> road , all that will take 12 turns... we have 16-17 turns until BW will be finished, so to have fast acces to chooping forests I propose (after those 12turns ) to make a road on forest which is N from Thebes. Then we will be able to choop that forest, and choop another forest realy fast.

Production in Thebes: finish Oracle -> finish Pyramids
Production in Memphis: after finishing Settler, maybe we could build a fishing boat, and wipe it quickly...

To make those "tech jumps" easy to understand, maybe we should divide them into two categories:
1) tech jump max - when we are maximizing the amount of reserch which goes to another technology ( when tech1 has 1 turn left, change reserch rate to max which will not finish that technology, and the turn after change the rate to max - 100%, to carry over max overflow to tech2 )
2) tech jump min - when we finish curent technology with minimum effort (min reserch rate which will allow us to finish tech1)

So tech would be... Writing (tech jump max) -> BW (tech jump max) -> fishing

Who's plaing and when?

Rihiter, Mike is playing next and he had mentioned that he would play before work Friday. He's in the US by the way so it will be tonight for me, mid afternoon for you.

Well we must decide what is more important. To build Pyramids or to build Oracle and get CoL with Confucionizm. I'm starting to worry that we will not manage to get it both.

I propose changing production to Pyramids... and try to finish them, then finish Oracle. Like we said before: Pyramids <- prioryty.

My instructions:
- Production in Thebes: change production to Pyramids (it is prioryty to build
them)
- Production in Memphis: finish settler -> some building to let the town grow ( baraks mayby ), when Fishing reserched change to fishing boat ( we will wipe it as soon as it's possible )
- reserch: finish Writing (tech jump max)-> BW (tech jump max)-> fishing...
- worker: move E to forest -> road ( it will be a road to the future city on Red Spot ) -> move to gras/hill -> road -> move to rice -> road -> move to grasland N of the forest with road on it -> road ( to the future city )

Please comment everybody.