Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 2 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?p=4354542) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

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

You are cast in the role of Tokugawa, mighty leader of the Japanese. Tokugawa's brother has left the island city of Kyoto to avenge the death of his wife and only son. He has travelled to a distant land without finding their murderer. So the brother of Tokugawa will settle and found a new Japanese colony, and the Japanese have sworn to conquer the rest of civilization in order to hunt down and destroy their enemy.

The game is on a Standard size fractal map, modified as only Gyathaar knows how, at Epic speed. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the fastest teams to achieve a Conquest victory. The number of AI rivals has not yet been revealed. It will be played using version 1.61 of Civ4 with locked modified assets.

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 August 8th.

Here's the start position.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM02_start.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Tokugawa of Japan
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, hand modified
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - YES!
Barbarians - Raging!!

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

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization IV v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by Conquest.

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.

I'm sure you'll enjoy this game :D

here we go.

what is the roster? who is the (administrative)leader?

on a side note. i will be moving back to the states next weekend (aug 13th). i might be busy around this time, so dont worry if i am not around during this time. i will be back. i would volunteer for the leader, if it was not for this.

anybody want to do a practice game with world builder?

Hi guys. I think we are in the wrong thread. :lol: Alan's list says none of us is in this team anymore. We have vanished, so I do not know the complete roster. 1 or 2 new players will have joined us.
We should do the roster according to time zones. That will be most effective.

I did a practice game which ran quite well. The biggest difficulty I have is the high maintenance of cities in the early phase. I tend to conquer too fast.:) Much at the start depends whether we have copper. I had it right beside my capitol. As we are aggressive our units start with combat 1 and with raging barbs promotions come quickly. My first axemen were at combat 4 very fast and the first AI that met me was somehow unlucky.;)

wee, well...I think I'm not qualified to be the leader either for multiple reasons. (first SG, 'the new guy', going on vacation from Aug 5th to 14th)

I'll be back after that, so don't worry, I'm not AWOL :)

as for practice games...I've done 3 random maps with the same settings, and I can safely say that barbs really suck. lol

Ideally we should go for a CS-slingshot, but with ragins barbs it could be pretty difficult(I haven't managed it in 3 attempts although I got CoL once and missed the Oracle by 2 turns!!!).

Wonder building by the AI seems immensely slowed down, only once was the Oracle built before 800BC!!!

anyway, I've got other notes somewhere on my computer...I just gotta find them :D

I'm gonna run a practice game without trying for the slingshot ;)
I think it'll be a little more successful.

I will start another practice game in the evening. The copper in my practice game made it too easy I think. I did not have any problems with barbs due to that.

as a side note...where did the logs come from that I saw people posting during the last SGOTM?

do the SGOTMs use the HOF mod or something that has logging in it?

When you played your turns you have to upload your save on the "SGOTM Progress and Results Page". The link you can see here in the first post of AlanH. After uploading the save you will see the log and you can just copy and paste it, but to be honest I do not like these logs. Especially all the detailed fight statistics make it very long. If you copy the important things it is ok, but I would prefer "handwritten" logs like we have done in the first game.

I always have the editor running in the background and switch to it to write down everything immediately. We play just 10 turns each, so this really does not take very long.

yeah, I just wasn't sure...obviously it will be easier to remember what happened when if you only play 10 turns at a time :)

so here's my notes on my 4 test games so far:

Test 1-3 were on the possibility of a CS-slingshot(UU is Samurai, so CS early CS could give us pre-AD Samurai, which would then steamroll over the AI)
Test 4 was to do a more traditional, militaristic approach

Test 1: I got wiped out by barbarians around 1000BC, while building the Oracle. I only saw archer and warrior barbs, but they overwhelmed my 5 warrior fogbusters. I killed off 30 barbs before finally losing.

Learned: CS is extremely risky, distant neighbors means barbs are very heavy, and it appeared wonders were delayed by raging barbs.

Test 2: I went for archery on the way to a CS-slingshot. I had much heavier barbs, but survived because of archer fogbusters, and because I had a close neighbor I managed to be friendly with. I got CoL, but failed to get Oracle by 5 turns(should have MM'd the city better to get them at the same time).
I warred a more distant neighbor, and managed to capture a city and raze 2, but then couldn't get farther along because of a very bad RNG that made me lose repeatedly to archers and chariots(she had no metals, and I still couldn't beat her)

Learned: Oracle was built in 800BC, very much delayed from normal monarch games. A friendly close neighbor can be helpful for barbs.

Test 3: I was on a small, jungle continent alone...I almost quit right when I saw that. I stayed on to see how bad the barbs were...by 1000BC, I had one city, had lost 9 troops and killed over 75 barbs.

Learned: If there are no close neighbors, we need to expand to 2-4 cities fairly quickly to minimize the area that barbs can spawn in.

Test 4: I tried a more standard approach to the game...I built a few warriors, researched to archery, then to BW...I have no copper. Not in the radius of either of my cities at this time. The closest copper I can see is smack dab in the middle of New India. :( I promptly begin teching up again, and eventually get to IW fairly early for me....I have no iron either, not around any of my 4 cities by this point. Oh...and Huayna apparently knows this because he then declares war on me and sends axemen and spearmen against me.

Does aggressive AIs give additional experience to AI troops? cause every single unit Huayna sent against me was lvl 4 or higher. I obviously couldn't beat him back with archers and chariots...so after trading Edo back and forth a few times, I stopped to report in.

Learned: BW early could be useful, but if we don't have copper, we are in big trouble. if we have copper, a CS-slingshot going by way of mining>BW>CS tech path could be possible. We'd need to have founded a second city though.

SGOTM specific thoughts:

Distance penalties will rack up really quickly with out capital out in the middle of the ocean like this...once we've got the barb situation under control and have a few cities up and running, I think we should consider moving the capital to the mainland. That'd give us only one distant city, not several.

CS-slingshot could be the most powerful weapon in our arsenal. if we get Priesthood, BW, and Writing done, then Kyoto could pop-rush a library, run a couple scientist specialists, and then work on nothing but the Oracle until we get the CS-slingshot, leaving Osaka and future cities to focus on military.

Finally...if we have multiple close neighbors, I'd suggest leaving our closest one alone to help with barb problems, destroy everyone else, and then go for our closest one.

What are your thoughts? I'll probably try an attempt for the CS-slingshot going through BW next, to see if axemen fogbusters make it easier to do.

i have played some test games using the same settings. since i have never won a monarch game, this will be my first, on my own. the raging barbs were a problem for me the first two tries. but after i went for archery, everything seemed to be ok. in the current game i am playing(the successful one), i did not have copper at first, i had to steal it from the egyptians. but what i did learn is that there is more of an importance on either getting copper or archery. and then fog busting like crazy. including the shores, the pirates caught me off gaurd a little later in the game and i lost a lot of fisheries.

i did not try for any slingshot, because i didnt want to waste time on non-military techs and production. maybe there is an arguement for getting the samarai faster.

i have two rivals left at about 1500ad, off shore, so i am having to beef up my economy while i research to astronomy. then i should make short work of them, they are ahead in techs, but way behind in an army.

the aggressive personality traits never seemed to come into play, they were more willing to trade with me than i was with them. i was way more aggressive than they.

i sued for techs a lot and would attack someone else in the mean time. to keep everybody down. i found that knights are totally useless and not worth upgrading your horse archers to, unless the enemy has a standing army that makes it on your land. with vasalage and theocracy i was making samarai with two levels of city raider and the free one star. they easily took out anything in my way.

and yeah, are there any automatic logs? i know there are mods, but i dont have any of those. let me know and i will look through it and pull out a tech path.

I did not go for the slingshot, too. I built units as here the winner will be with fastest conquest. I put all my efforts in building up an army. After bronze working I went directly for alphabet to enable tech trading. I went fairly ok with that and I was second in score when I quitted that game.

I did not go for the slingshot, too. I built units as here the winner will be with fastest conquest. I put all my efforts in building up an army. After bronze working I went directly for alphabet to enable tech trading. I went fairly ok with that and I was second in score when I quitted that game.

yeah i wish i had tech trading earlier in the game. i could have sued for more techs sooner.

but we should explore going for a slingshot.

yeah i wish i had tech trading earlier in the game. i could have sued for more techs sooner.

but we should explore going for a slingshot.

Of course.

as far as where to settle:

i vote that we move the warrior to the hill and see what is east. if there isnt something 'must have' over there, then we should settle NW. this would give us both fish and rice, for lots of :whipped: , we would be on the coast, and on a river for health and trade.

Hi everyone and a warm welcome to Thrallia. :goodjob: I see from the maintenance thread that markh has been trying to recruit another member. :)

as far as where to settle:

i vote that we move the warrior to the hill and see what is east. if there isnt something 'must have' over there, then we should settle NW. this would give us both fish and rice, for lots of :whipped: , we would be on the coast, and on a river for health and trade.

Sounds quite good to me. It almost seems be a trademark of Gyathaar's maps to put the 'starting' settler in not quite the best position.

My attempts at playing test maps haven't gone too well but since I haven't quite got the hang of anything above noble this doesn't surprise me too much.

For me the interesting thing is Kyoto i.e. why is it there apart from making the background sound better?

@markh The idea of organising the roster by time zone sounds good. I am in GMT + 1 aka British Summer Time.

On the subject of city maintenance we need to remember that the laurels are only for a conquest victory. Also all the victory conditions are enabled. As a result we will need to be more discriminating about which cities we keep and make sure we don't get domination victory by accident. :) Of course we will also need to make sure none of the AI gets a chance at any of the other victory types. I am sure you all know this but better to mention and not be needed than the other way around. :D

EDIT: I'm sure copper or iron will be in the neighbourhood as this is a modded map. The only question is whether Gyathaar has been evil enough to put it on another island or within another AI's territory. Actually perhaps he did both. :eek:

I think 6 players might be a little low. Thrallia is going on vacation for two weeks from this weekend and trippstowe is moving back to the US, so I think seven is better to keep the game moving. Skips and swaps will be easier then.

Agree on warrior on the hill to have a look what is there. Settling NW would be my preference, too as fishing is one of our starting techs, so we can get the fishes online much sooner than the rice.

Played another test map and this time I had no copper near. It was much harder. Much more barbs.

NW does look nice...we'd still have 5 forests for chopping, 2 food resources, and a flood plain for cottaging or farming.

as for the slingshot...I think the best bet for it might be to use Kyoto for that. It doesn't need to build military anyway, will have massive pop after getting all those fish and crabs working, and if we have BW, we can pop-rush a library(then use two specialists to speed up CoL) and a lighthouse, and then just run max growth and Oracle building in it until we can pop rush that as well.

Hopefully we do have metal near us cause without it barbs are a hassle. Archery relieves it some, but axemen would be much nicer than archers.

I'll see if I can get time to run a couple more test games to find a range of years that the AI will build the Oracle with raging barbs.

ugh...Either I'm a lot worse at this game than I thought I was, or my RNG hates me tonight.

I did 2 tests...the first one, I lost my first two warriors to lions(I was defending on forests), then lost Kyoto in 2700!!!BC to a barb warrior while building a warrior to replace my lost ones.

Second one...I lose a warrior to a lion while defending on a hill. My other early warrior gets trapped behind a wall of early persian cities while exploring and can't come back. I then get swamped by barbs, starting in 2700BC. I was unable to do anything but build warriors nonstop until 1800BC when I built a settler, sent him N to get floodplains and gold to maybe do more research. Unfortunately, a turn before I would have had an archer to defend Kyoto, I lost all 3 warriors I had defending to 2 archers and 2 warriors.

Conclusion...unless we want to gamble for copper early, we should do hunting>archery before doing mining>BW. I have yet to actually have copper near me on a fractal map in 6 games.

edit: I couldn't do worldbuilder while using the HOF mod, I'll see if I can without it active. If so, I'll try to mimic the start for some of you better players to attempt some starts, for CS Slingshot and otherwise.

Here's a couple saves...I'm extremely new to WB, so they aren't anywhere near high quality, and I don't know how to replace the blacked out fog of war...but at least they look pretty similar to the start! :goodjob:

One has metals, one doesn't...so we can test it out both ways.

Enjoy!

edit: I also am not sure if aggressive AI and raging barbs is on or not...so I guess that'll also be figured out.

I also played two starts yesterday. One was almost in the same condition like this SGOTM. Starting on the coast with crabs nearby. In both starts barbs were swarming all over and I also had some bad RNG. highly promoted archers with a winning probability of 97%+ lost regularly. One save had copper nearby, but I had absolutely no chance connecting it in a reasonable timeframe.
From these two games I would not take the gamble on copper. The game might be over sooner than we wish then. :rolleyes: Hunting and archery is a must according to my feeling. Warriors will not be able to handle the situation if the barbs come in these numbers.

Does anybody have any objections if we ask klarius to join our team ?

Does anybody have any objections if we ask klarius to join our team ?

of course not, welcome.

I just saw that klarius has been assigned to us. Welcome.

Where are juballs and sidiousstone (I hope I got the name right) ?

juballs was nominated to chase up the rest, using PMs if necessary. It looks as though one of you will have to chase *him*. New players frequently forget to come back and find out what the results of the sign up were, so siddiousstone will probably also need a chaser.

I will chase the rabbits.:bump:

I had a play with WB last night. As I'm not too experienced with it the results may not be entirely valid. :)

I found I could only research at 30% max, Kyoto hit health problems after growing to four and Osaka had no culture and hence didn't expand. The last was probably because I hadn't built an obelisk to generate culture

I'm sure that Gyathaar will do a better job than I did so hopefully we won't have all these problems.

One thing I did do was build a barracks early whilst waiting for archery to come in which certainly helped with the barbs.

I certainly agree with markh that we should go for archery early. We will undoubtedly need to focus on an ocean going capability as well.

I suspect Gyathaar and the staff are still feeling their way with Civ4 SGOTMs atm. Perhaps they thought the last one was not too challenging so this one may go tothe other extreme and be a real pig. :(

I'll try and have a go at Thrallia's games this evening.

EDIT: No problem with Klarius joining.

Well, I'm here :wavey:

BTW 48-year-old fart, holding a masters degree in physics, but working as an engineer in computer programming and simulation nowadays. Living in Germany at the shore of Lake Constance.

To the game:

I also did some world builder tests and I come to the conclusion that we cannot afford to settle anywhere near where we are now :cry:.
Our economy will be totally trashed by the distance maintainance (at least -7gpt and it will go up by 1gpt with every pop growth on the second city).
To get a healthy economy we would have to work several mature cottages, which then means we have nearly no production.
Even w/o looking on gold, it's questionable if a city here could survive. It would need a worker and an obelisk before it could get even marginal production and then it's limited to size 4 with no lux. And if not settled on the river it will even get unhealthy then (sure health resources are available, but the fish needs a workboat, the rice may soon be subject to pillaging).

Losing the city after it has dragged down our economy for a long time is obviously the worst case.
So I think we should scout with the settler and warrior until we either find a real power location or we are much nearer to the capital.
I'm talking here about anything between 10 and 30 turns and am well aware that the settler maybe eaten by an animal even with the warrior covering.
But I think losing the settler would still be better than settling a lousy spot and killing the economy. Our capital is in a safe spot and can do very good research and also some production with slavery.
I'm pretty sure that there is coast north of the capital (the sea looks a bit lighter and there is commerce on the edges), so there should be the chance to get there with galleys.
I think we should start with researching mysticism, while scouting the land towards the east (and maybe a little towards the south along the river). If we don't find a good location or the settler gets lost early, head for polytheism, which should give a good chance for a religion in the capital or in the then later settled second city.
If we find a power location early, research what's needed for the second city.
If we get an early religion in the capital we could try to get a great prophet there to research most of civil service (pop rush a temple and run a priest). Getting to code of law should be no problem as long as the second city isn't too much of a burden.
We could even try to partially pop-rush the Oracle there, but that would come pretty late (though I succeeded in one test game :crazyeye: running only the capital).

I don't have much hope for building the Oracle otherwise. We for sure cannot afford a third city this far away from the capital and building enough military and then the Oracle in the second city would really need an extreme good spot (like a marble hill to settle with some gems, gold and food around :D ).

To the game:

I also did some world builder tests and I come to the conclusion that we cannot afford to settle anywhere near where we are now :cry:.
Our economy will be totally trashed by the distance maintainance (at least -7gpt and it will go up by 1gpt with every pop growth on the second city).
To get a healthy economy we would have to work several mature cottages, which then means we have nearly no production.
Even w/o looking on gold, it's questionable if a city here could survive. It would need a worker and an obelisk before it could get even marginal production and then it's limited to size 4 with no lux. And if not settled on the river it will even get unhealthy then (sure health resources are available, but the fish needs a workboat, the rice may soon be subject to pillaging).


Certainly sounds pretty grim. :eek:

However I can't believe that Gyathaar would make it so totally impossible especially since the laurels are only for a conquest victory. :nuke: Realistically I think we need to settle within the first five turns otherwise our settler will be wiped out by barbs and we're up the creek without a paddle. :)

I believe the spot NW is by a river mouth so hopefully that should help with health.

Nice analysis and strategy, klarius. Didn't consider the maintenance with our capital in that position. :goodjob:

I think the cities are not too far apart. Kyoto is in the far left and the settler is in the far right, so it might not be that bad concerning maintenance and corruption. I will test a little more this evening.

I am quite sure that if we move the settler too far it will be toast. I do not think that this was in the mind of the developers, but you never know.;)

If we lose the settler and achieve a conquest victory from the one tile island this will be the game of the year for sure.:D And this team should get a special laurel.

Well, I have moved a settler with these settings for 30 turns and it was not toast. Nevertheless the city was toast when I tried to get the Oracle there with only 2 warriors defending :rolleyes:.

I don't think there are human barbs before around turn 30-40. For sure a bear can eat the settler, but mostly you can avoid animals.

The tile NW is not on the river. It has no commerce.
It's really a poor location. Only after culture expansion it can be marginally productive and that will take a long time. About 20 turns to mysticism, if we trash our economy by settling right away, then another about 20 turns to build an obelisk, after that build a worker and a work boat. All the time we still have no more than 2 warriors.
Any decent city site settled on a plains hill with some river food bonus and an easy accessible lux will perform better even when settled 20-30 turns later.
That doesn't mean such a town will be safe, but it has a better chance than this spot.

The cities are roughly 40 tiles apart for sure (36-37 e-w and 5-6 n-s according to my pixel counting). Note you don't see the whole map in CIV only the part encompassing what you have scouted. About half of the map is not visible. The whole width should be 84 tiles.

And I don't see the big problem with winning from the one tile island, if I'm right that other land is reachable by galley.

I also had a game where the barbs did not hit me that early, but the majority of test games so far gave massive barbs and very early. If I would have not settled early and built 2 warriors right away the city would have been gone.

I really doubt that the staff would be that cruel to make the second city that useless in the beginning as then the whole competition would depend on luck whether your settler would be killed or not when you would have to move him. The second city will have higher maintenance, but I do not think it will be that severe. I am thinking of -2 or -3, but that's it. If the maintenance of the second city will be at -7 it would take the whole fun out of this game. It is only the second CIV SGOTM and I think many players would lose interest with such a setting. It would be an OCC game for quite a long time. The barb setting already will make the game more difficult and I think this will be the biggest obstacle, but also the the most fun in the early game. The beginnings of CIV games quite slow, so I think the staff wanted to give us a beginning with much more action to make the game more attractive especially in the beginning.

I do not want to neglect your strategy which I find very interesting. I just cannot believe that the developers are that tough to the teams in the second SGOTM. I would see your setting as a challenge and I would love it, but I think many younger players here would simply drop out.

Well, I'm absolutely sure about the -7gpt like in the attached save. That doesn't mean that the game cannot be played, the research is just pretty low.
Still settling at the lousy nw spot needs about 30 turns for 2 warriors.
A similar spot (1 times 3 food and a forest) settled on a plains hill will need less than 20. So 10 turns would already be justified for just getting a plains hill.

BTW, I just played another test game up to CS slingshot where I did wander 26 turns before settling (with another map I didn't save). There was only one really dicey situation, when a barb archer came along while there was only one warrior in the city :eek:. That's still a good chance for a warrior fully fortified in a hill town.
It helped a lot in this game that the second city was settled near to an AI capital :crazyeye:.

im here guys,,, sorry been busy with work.,.. i will read what we have so far and get caught up...


glad to see you joined us Geezers Klarius. for once i can join klarius instead of trying to beat him in the civ 3 SGOTM.

lets win this thing this time guys!

I checked your save and if it is really that far from the capital it does look ugly indeed. That would take away all the fun from the game in my opinion. If the barbs are like in most of the test games I played the settler and warrior walking around will not have a chance most of the time. Raging barbs and aggressive AI with such a bad setting does not make any sense to me for a SGOTM.

Will play around with the world builder, too and see what that gives me. Most likely the game has started until I find out how it works though.:lol:

Here is what I have. Maintenance is at -2 if you found Osaka on that spot.

It all depends how far the settler really is from Kyoto. I do not think it is too far.

I've been experimenting further and I got -5 for maintenance. I didn't keep the save so I can't post it. However I started playing a couple of games just trying to use Kyoto and to build the Oracle and that gave me problems as well. I got stuck at pop 4 for quite a while until I got hinduism. After that the next sticking point was pop 6. The main problem was the lack of hammers in Kyoto. If I tried using citizen specialists to increase hammers then research slowed down.

I got the Oracle once but failed twice. I'll have a look at the saves and see how they compared but at the moment I think there may be something to be said for gritting our teeth and accepting the maintenance cost. That's not to say that we shouldn't settle on the hill instead though.

Well, look at this picture:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/klarius_sg4_2_2.jpg
The upper minimap is from your file. I copied the 5X5 tile square around the capital and stamped it in 15 times meaning about 75 tiles. So with the wraparound we only have about 10 tiles distance in the other direction.
The lower map is from the first post in the thread. I can only fit in the 5X5 square about 7 times so around 35 tile e-w. Together with the n-s difference we get the roughly 40 tiles distance I put in my file.

I do not know whether I got it, but you cannot compare the pics in the first post as the first one showing Kyoto is zoomed in. The ocean tiles are bigger than in the pic showing the settler. I would say that the distance is not that big. Maybe it is maintenance -3, but not more.

And, BTW, I played my save twice to civil service. Once settling south on the plains hill near the gems. Got the Oracle slingshot after building worker-barracks-warriors.
None of the warriors was lost in the capitol, though hordes of archers attacked (and the mines on the gems needed a few rebuilds). Chopped every tree to get the Oracle.

Second try I walked 18 tiles eastwards (for only :rolleyes: -4gpt) and settled behind Inca. Build only 1 extra warrior then Obelisk, which allowed to culture snatch the Incan stone (complete with quarry :D ). Build stonehenge and lost the Oracle by 1 turn :crazyeye:. But still got a decent date for CS by using a prophet to help research it.
Both games should allow to get to Samurai at a time where the AIs and Barbs have no real defense against them.

Edit (Crosspost)
markh, I only compare tiles within the same minimap. The bright spot around the capital is always a 5X5 square and I measure the distance by this square.

I still think Kyoto and the settler in your save are too far apart. -7 is too tough.

Why are you keen to build the oracle ? I really do not care about the oracle. In all my games on Monarch or now emperor I do not care about wonders. I never build any great wonders. In my opinion it is a waste. After BW go straight for alphabet for tech trading. This is most efficient.

I'm not interested in the Oracle per se.
But I'm interested in techs, which we need urgently and are not easily traded. We don't need alphabet that urgent, but Code of Laws, so we can build our cheap courthouses.
And we need the very expensive Civil Service for Samurai. Then we will have the buying power to get a lot other techs.

BTW I just see an interesting post in the maintenance thread:
1. We now know that there are seven rivals on the map (not including the barbs).

2. Much pixel-counting effort has been expended to try to work out the distance between Kyoto and the settler. To settle the debates, and to help your strategy discussions move forward, we'll divulge that the second city, if built where the settler stands, would cost 7 gpt in maintenance.

7gpt... ouch... very early in the game.

so here are my suggestions

1) scout as stated above with the settler and warrior and find a location that helps not only the distance/gpt problem but has 2-3 solid luxuries in its workable area.
in actuality this unfounded city is our capital. it isnt in technical terms, but nothing is coming out of that 1 tile island city for a while, this settler that seems to be on the mainland is our key to the rest of the civs.
we need to find a location that can produce workers/settlers quickly.



my suggestions/concerns

1. our settler dying, i mean, this game could be over in the first 20 turns if we are not careful. im not saying cheat and save every turn, that is not aloud, but i mean, we have to be super cautious as to how long we plan on letting our mainland exploration duo wander around.
2. if barbs arent as aggresive as thought, lets get our settler settled, i mean a good spot may end up better then a great spot 10-15 turns away.
3. we need to focus on what techs will get us out of the -gpt hole asap.


we also need to think up a roster... i will post one momentarily.

my thinking is to let klarius do the first turn. i have watched you play before and am amazed by some of the things you have pulled out of the bag. i know you would make the right moves to get us started.


roster will be up shortly

Rough Roster

Klarius
Trippstowe
Sam Yeager
Markh
Juballs
Thrallia


gives tripp a chance to play before he comes back to the western hemisphere. and lets thrallia go on vacation and be back just before his turnset begins, i put myself before him, so i will finish around the time he will be returning.
the last member of our team hasnt reported yet, but he/she can go at the end if or when they check in.


any comments or concerns.... lets here them

first comment: thrallia is a he, not a she ;)

second comment: I agree we should try to move our settler much closer to Kyoto, but in every single one of my test games, I had an archer barb show up before 2500BC, and in all but one of them, I saw at least one human barb by 2700BC. I think we should attempt to settler by 3500BC at the latest. The good news is that we should have time then to still research hunting>archery quickly since we already have a city established.

third comment: If we can found Osaka near an AI or two, I wonder what the merits of going builder until Samurai is compared to straight out conquest? If we do builder/fast teching to get the CS-slingshot and use a GE or research Machinery, then we'll have a great chance to take out at least a few AI with Samurai when they still have archers/axemen.

edit: fourth comment: I changed my user group thing...I'm fairly sure it fits ;) (23 years old)

What do you guys think?

7 gpt for the second city is not nice. :blush: Great analysis, klarius :goodjob: Will practice some more with these settings.

Rough Roster

Klarius
Trippstowe
Sam Yeager
Markh
Juballs
Thrallia


gives tripp a chance to play before he comes back to the western hemisphere. and lets thrallia go on vacation and be back just before her turnset begins, i put myself before her, so i will finish around the time she will be returning.
the last member of our team hasnt reported yet, but he/she can go at the end if or when they check in.


any comments or concerns.... lets here them

this sounds good to me. hopefully i will be able to play between packing. i will keep you guys updated this week.

btw, how many turns to start out? 20? for the first couple of players. i also think it would be a good idea to let klarious play until he at least settles osaka, since he sounds like he has done a lot of analysis on this subject.

sounds good to me too, especially since that means klarius will be able to clean up after I screw things up during my turns :p

I have no problem with starting this, but a little warning ;).
I have lots of experience with civ3, as some people might know :), but haven't played much [civ4] .

I also think we should start with 20ish turnsets - not much happening per turn in the beginning in CIV epic speed.
But as always every player should come back to this thread if something interesting is happening.

I have no problem with starting this, but a little warning ;).
I have lots of experience with civ3, as some people might know :), but haven't played much [civ4] .

I also think we should start with 20ish turnsets - not much happening per turn in the beginning in CIV epic speed.
But as always every player should come back to this thread if something interesting is happening.


agreed.

take her to sea klarius

i have also PM'd AlanH to tell him that if our 7th leg does not show, that we are not in need of a replacement.
some teams out there had only 4-5 people show up to their threads, they need the help more then we do.
i think with the 6 we got and even with all the vacations and moves, we can keep up the pace and challenge for the win.
any thoughts on this?

I think we're good with 6, trippstowe and I only have the beginning turns we might miss, after that it sounds like all of us are good for the game.

@juballs2001 - I'm happy that we can manage with 6 people in the team. As far as the roster goes I would prefer to be a bit further down the order as I am still not that good on the higher levels.

@klarius - I had a few plays on your map and eventually managed to get the CS slingshot. However it then took me ages to get Machinery so that I could build Samurai. On your map I didn't have any copper nearby so I had to research Iron Working which didn't help. :(

A couple of questions:

What's our fallback strategy if we miss the slingshot?
Even if we get the slingshot what will be the impact if there is no copper or iron nearby?

ok, I'm gone on vacation now...I'll be back by the 16th, so I hope to see good things then :)

good luck everyone!

since thrallia is gone sam, you can go after me for the first 1-2 tunrsets... ok?

i made it like this because we have 2 of 3 that are good a high difficulties in each group of 6... i think lol

so for the first round you can take thrallias spot and markh and myself will
move up one


Klarius
Trippstowe
Markh
Juballs
Sam Yeager
Thrallia (on vacation)

since thrallia is gone sam, you can go after me for the first 1-2 tunrsets... ok?

Yes that's fine juballs.

I know how much early errors can really foul up the whole game which is why I didn't really want to go early.

btw, as far as getting machinery fast also...perhaps we should look at getting MC fast after the slingshot and then get a forge and Hanging Gardens built in Osaka and pump out a GE to research Machinery for us?

now I'm really gone :D

Well, I downloaded the save before going to work, so I got it, but didn't open it.

I intend to play in the evening.

My test games lead me to the conclusion that settling on a hill is a must. Exploring some time is no problem, if we get a good city spot and indeed increases our research quite a bit.
So I will settle near our current location, only if I find a great spot. Otherwise I will try to walk towards our capital.
Researchwise, I now prefer to go mining->bronze working. Forest chops and slavery both may save the day in an emergency. :)
I did even two games, where I didn't settle until I knew where copper is (and settled near copper). Both worked OK, but the risk is probably to high for a SGOTM :crazyeye:.

Unfortunately I did not have the time to test some more. Surprising visitors and I was up in another SG.

I would go mining and bronze working, too. I did this in my first trial game and it worked quite well having copper in the range of the first city.

Well, I downloaded the save before going to work, so I got it, but didn't open it.

I intend to play in the evening.

My test games lead me to the conclusion that settling on a hill is a must. Exploring some time is no problem, if we get a good city spot and indeed increases our research quite a bit.
So I will settle near our current location, only if I find a great spot. Otherwise I will try to walk towards our capital.
Researchwise, I now prefer to go mining->bronze working. Forest chops and slavery both may save the day in an emergency. :)
I did even two games, where I didn't settle until I knew where copper is (and settled near copper). Both worked OK, but the risk is probably to high for a SGOTM :crazyeye:.

sounds good! i have become a big fan of whipping recently. plus we will have to have it in our capital if we ever want to build anything. btw, can someone point out an article on the slavery "bug"? i need to reread, and i think that everyone else should read it too. everyone seems to use it in the GOTM and there are no complaints from the admins, so i assume it it legal to use. it is basically taking advantage of rounding, like the 100%/0% research rate, which we should use after we build our first library.

i dont think it has been mentioned on this thread, but this team last time used the (flexible)24hour/48hour rule. it worked out well, we should go by this again.

how long till we get bronze working? do you think it is feasible that we can use our second settler for copper? will toku's brother make it that long?

The reference for many quirks including pop rushing (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=159109)

Note that of 1.61 the bug is useful only if you have a production bonus, not like before already by playing epic speed.

Bronze working will need roughly 30 turns, if we don't settle before.
The problem is that we may have to defend the city against several human barbs with only 1 warrior.
It worked fine in my test games (a warrior fortified in a hill town is pretty strong: +25% city defense +25% hill +25% fortify +10% combat 1), but bad RNG may lose the city even at good chances, especially if by accident 2 barbs arrive in the same turn early.

The save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Geezers_SG002_BC2830_01.Civ4SavedGame)

Well I played a lot of turns, but I really wanted to see copper and after settling early this took some time.

Ok here we go, turnlog form my first [civ4] SGOTM

Turn 0 4000BC:
Move the warrior on the hill and already see a much better location with sheep and gems.
But it's on the wrong side relative to our capital. :( Not quite good enough.
Settler moves 2 times sw. Also better stuff (wheat), but also not good enough for me. And I fog gaze coast in the west, so it doesn't look like we will really get a lot nearer to the capital.

Set research to mining.
Capital stays on work boat, what else ;).

Turn 1 3970BC:
Warrior se and I think I have the power location. Gems, gold and an oasis.
Settler swings se to come back to there eventually.

Turn 2 3940BC:
Settler 2 ne. Warrior ne.

Turn 3 3910BC:
So now where to settle. The location the settler is, isn't bad but will give the gems only after culture expansion.
And it will have several desert tiles (not so important in the next few 1000 years).
I could settle on the gold, but that would give only 1 shield in the city center.
So, I choose the plains hill 2n, to be settled in 2 turns.
Will have oasis (counts as fresh water), gems and gold. And it will have sheep and rice on expansion.
Not so nice is that we will start with -8gpt probably, but that will be offset by the oasis.

Turn 4 3880BC:
Settler moves to spot. Warrior continues scouting.

Turn 5 3850BC:
Settle Osaka. Build warrior. -8gpt :( . Warrior continues scouting.

Turn 6 3820BC:
Warrior continues scouting. Finds stone, though we will not use this anytime soon.

Turn 7 3790BC:
More exploration. Kyotos borders expand and we see land we can reach with galleys. But it looks like tiny islands to me.
Nevertheless we should put sailing higher on our list. We can settle two towns which can easily earn us some gold.

Turn 8-13 3760BC-3580BC :
warrior explores. And we meet Spain. Her scout is at our capital and at the same time our warrior sees her border.

Turn 14 3550BC:
Our warrior is at the spanish border. There might be a chance to steal a worker soon.

Turn 15 3520BC:
There is now an spanish archer on the tile I thought a worker might come. Give up the idea of worker stealing for now.
Warrior will track back. Mining is in ->BW. Osaka completes warrior and builds now worker.

Turn 16-20 3490BC-3340BC:
warriors move and have a few animal encounters. I think I do some more, there's really nothing happening. Maybe until BW.

Turn 21 3310BC:
Work boat finishes. Goes on fish. Kyoto builds warrior. Another work boat would let it go unhappy before we have a warrior.

Turn 22 3280BC:
Isabella is Buddhist now.

Turn 23-30 3250BC-3100BC
not much.

Turn 31 3070BC:
Finally worker completes and I mine Gems. Set production to warrior.

turn 32-36 3040BC-2920BC
not much. Somewhere the warrior in Kyoto completes-> workboat

turn 37 2890:
warrior completes in Osaka->barracks. Gems are mined.

turn 38 2860:
Yawn.

Turn 39 2830:
BW is in. Copper is visible. but not in range of Osaka. Revolt.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/klarius_sg4_2_4.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/klarius_sg4_2_3.jpg
Hand-off notes:

Well we will not be able to afford a copper city anytime soon :( .

Human barbs will appear soon. I wouldn't try to defend the worker at bad odds, rather have the warriors in the city and let the worker run. But I think we can defend with warriors for quite some time, if they are cover promoted.

In the capital the next build after the workboat we should already think of building a settler instead of growing to unhappy six. But don't complete it, just let it sit at one turn to completion. A third workboat doesn't help us much currently.

I would say we should research sailing now. We can then settle the northern islands from our capital. A galley should be pop-rushed for this then.
And we may even get a religion in Osaka. With a road to the river we are connected to Spain after sailing.

hey guys i definitely will not be able to play tonight or tomorrow. there is a chance i might have some time late tomorrow night or thursday. even then i will probably do a shorter set(10 turns?). is this ok? should someone go ahead of me?

take your move slowly tripp... dont worry about this turnset, we have 3 other players eager to get their feet wet in this game




good turnset klarius, i also agree that sailing should be moved up. harbours and ships could help us get some resources on those islands. however, we may not be able to afford those towns until we get the courthouses.


Klarius - just played
Trippstowe - skip till moved
Markh - UP
Juballs - on deck
Sam Yeager
Thrallia (on vacation)

The towns on the islands will easily pay for themselves.
They are so near to the capital that they don't have distance maintenance, just number of cities cost.
They will work coastal tiles with commerce.
And they will get a trade route for another coin (and one trade route in the capital).

Having had a quick look at the save I think that we will need to look at our military in the not too distant future. Izzy is already annoyed at us and we all know what that means. ;)

It would be nice to grab the copper to the NE. However with the funds as they are this is probably not that feasible in the short term. :( Fortunately there is copper to the south as well. :)

Given that this game as presented to us has started off as a bummer I wouldn't be surprised to find that Izzy or someone else will be coming after us shortly. Perhaps we need to consider Archery fairly soon? I know warriors are probably ok against barbs but Izzy is likely to be rather nastier.

i agree... but will founding 1-2 cities on the northern islands benefit our gpt probloems more then founding a more productive city near our 2nd town?
the distance will kick in again...

i always think in the back of my mind... why dont we just raze our capital.... lol, still got civ 3 in the back of my mind

I am not 100% sure, but I think with revealing copper the barbs get axemen as well, so we have to expect some of these when the barbs start to appear.

Maybe Izzy is already annoyed as we are playing with aggressive AI.:mischief:

A few ;) thoughts about the game :).

Izzy being annoyed seems normal to me. Never had it different except when converting to her religion, which might be an option, if it spreads to Osaka. But overall I think Izzy is not the problem - the raging barbs are.
We could send a pillaging/harassing party into her land as soon as we can spare a few warriors, which would shut down her development. But the problem in the next few turnsets will be to defend against barbs and we might not even be able to spare a couple of warriors.

We have met only one AI and it doesn't look very likely that we soon meet more. So alphabet -> tech trading will probably not cut it. That means we have to research needed techs ourselves for quite some time.
With further thinking I'm now unsure what to research next.
Sailing is high on the list, but looking again on our capital, we will not be able to use it (build settler and pop-rush galley) by the time it is researched. So another research could be fit in before.
But nevertheless towns on the islands will benefit our economy. They will probably have -1gpt maintenance and may increase the cost of Osaka by 1gpt. But they immediately add a trade route and population growth working coastal tiles will then really add income.

We probably have to research hunting-archery at some time, so maybe now.
I don't see how we can hold a city by one of the coppers (and the copper tile itself) by warriors alone. But we can anyway not afford a second -9 or -10gpt city soon, especially not one without high commerce tiles.
Another problem is the number of units. Nicely promoted warriors can do a lot, but you need tons of them, which will lead to major unit maintenance.

But for tech development we should beeline for writing, which we urgently need for a library in the capital and the path to Code of Law.

As usual all is clear like muddy water. I'm even unsure, if the settling of Osaka at all will in the end turn out to be better than losing the settler. The capital region with 3 island towns could be a major research center if the economy isn't dragged down by Osaka and later by the unit cost for defending it.
Osaka can generate a lot commerce, but I'm pretty sure the barbs will not let us work the best tiles all the time. Only with a courthouse it will really shine.

Well, what does this all mean :confused:.
I think we don't want to give up Osaka :crazyeye: to get a nice island research empire and shift all military action to later.
So I think we have to research archery now first. After that I think we still need sailing to get the islands. All in all a big delay towards writing, so research isn't as hot as we would like.
Another path would be to go to priesthood and writing now and try to chop/build the Oracle for CoL, while researching the lower needed techs. But I doubt the barbs will let us do this. Still mysticism for an Obelisk should probably also slotted in.
I think we can't make Civil Service with the Oracle. We would have to beeline to CoL now and build the Oracle, while defending with warriors.
So we should probably not research masonry, though the stony island could be a nice place to build the Great Lighthouse (slowly, but with stone should be possible), to keep the option to lightbulb CS with a prophet w/o having to research a lot other techs.

Another small note to Osaka. The worker should now improve the gold hill. Osaka will grow to size 3 shortly after that. Then it should work oasis, gems and gold. You will have to assign this manually - no automatic option will give these tiles. That's a major pain when barbs will step on our tiles and you will have to check every turn.

@markh, I'm pretty sure that barb axemen are not directly related to revealing copper. They will come at some time, but not right now.

@markh, I'm pretty sure that barb axemen are not directly related to revealing copper. They will come at some time, but not right now.

I think I read it somewhere, but I am not sure. However as far as my old brain can recall it there is a connection. :crazyeye: Anyhow we would not be able to do much about it at the moment.

I will have a look at the save after work and throw my 0.02 in. Options we will have plenty and it will be quite difficult to judge what way will be best.

I got it and just hit enter to get out of anarchy to see how things are. Saved and came back here.

Looking at the map we are on a peninsula with a choke to Izzy. Then I would say the land will go westwards towards our capital. On the most eastern tile that is visible there is coast, so I do not think that there will be much more land to settle.

I thought of building a settler in Osaka and put a city at the indicated spot. Connect the copper and build abt. 5 axemen and go for Izzy. While in settling mode they are quite weak. Two defenders and this early the cities have no defensive bonus. The downside is that this would kill our research. Techs we could get in peace negotiations only. Furthermore the barbs may keep us too busy to let us go for Izzy that early. Researching sailing and settling the islands around Kyoto we could do while building the settler in Osaka.

Another thought : as soon as we have built the settler in Osaka and settled at the copper we could let the barbs take Osaka temporarily to reduce the maintenance. We would swap the cities for a certain period of time as it will not be very hard to take Osaka back when we can afford it. This of course is just an idea if we want to be very aggressive in the beginning. Maybe it is too weird.:crazyeye:

Researching sailing is a priority to settle the islands at Kyoto. This should be done asap in my opinion. At Osaka we cannot settle due to the high maintenance and we need more cities.

This is what I thought of now. I will not play today as I like to have more ideas from the team. With this setting everything is even more important in the beginning.

Well, as I stated before, I don't think you can settle where you want without archers.
You will need to mine the copper and defend the city and mine against archers and even then the first axe will take quite some time to build. I also don't think we can build a settler currently. We first need enough military to prevent pillaging of our improvements.
Giving up Osaka will gain nothing. When the city works both high commerce tiles it can pay for itself. But the new city will really be a big drag with no commerce tiles to work.
If we really have enough military to defend several flatland tiles, I would rather build roads first and then settle on the copper to immediately connect it to Osaka, where the production is much higher.
Another idea would be to settle the plains hill on the river and build an obelisk to get the copper on expansion. Still a problem to defend the copper, but at least the city is pretty easy to defend. Sharing commerce tiles with Osaka (which should then also have expansion already), is a further plus.


But still I don't think we gain a lot by destroying Izzy. I see no reason to believe that there is really a large extension to the west. And Madrid will be another city just dragging down our economy completely.
As an Old Philosopher "klarius" once said (probably stolen from Drazek):
It's not the first city that counts, it's the last one.

We have absolutely no idea what the land is like. As long as I don't see a proof that astronomy is not needed on this map, I don't like to virtually shut down research by having 3 cities this far from the capital. So I would rather not capture any cities before we have CoL. Gaining Bronze via the river site might be affordable, though still a big investment.

Looking at the save I estimate it would take about 34 turns to build a settler, assuming we defer the barracks, in Osaka based on 8 turns @ 3hammers & 26 @ 5 hammers after Osaka grows to 3. Whilst I may well be too pessimistic I can't see it being built in less than 25 turns at best. Izzy has already had her first expansion and has plenty of food to grow. Copper city and temporarily losing Osaka is nice lateral thinking but I don't think it's feasible. If you can convince me otherwise then that's another matter.

On the subject of techs I like klarius's idea of hunting and mining. I would also add masonry because Osaka has zero culture i.e. it's not going to expand so that we can work the gems to the north.

EDIT: I agree that we should build north of Kyoto sooner rather than later. As far as the mainland goes I think we are just going to have to make the best of a bad job for the time being. I suspect Izzy will grab the copper to the NE. I'm sure that Gyathaar planned it this way to make difficult for anyone to get early victories.

We also need more scouting both on the mainland and around those islands to the north when we get the workboat.

I would have not taken any Spanish city. I would just raze them. Taking them we cannot afford. Normally I just take cities if the AI has had Code of Laws for a certain period time. If you then take cities they usually have courthouses in it, so it is worthwhile.

I think Izzy will settle her second city soon. Before that we will never have any chance to get to Madrid, so my thinking was razing her second city to keep her low. Once she starts settling she will gain speed.

I would not have settled without archers or any units. I would have taken all units from Osaka to the copper city and let the barbs take Osaka. Osaka would not be given up. It would be borrowed. Barbs manage the cities and build improvements and they would not pillage in that area. We could use that for a certain period of time. Of course the city at the copper or on the copper would not be a good place, but it could get us some axemen which we will need. I do not know at all if this is possible. It was just an idea I had having another beer.

Back to my turnset : I would research sailing now and then I would come back here to report. The barbs will appear soon and we might be able to judge better after the next 10 turns what to research after sailing.

It just came to my mind that there is something else we could do first.
That's research iron working. Maybe Gyathaar was so nice to put iron (which we need anyways for samurai) in a better location than these steenkin' bad copper locations. Now with swords we really could think of a Spanish adventure.

Still I don't see why we should raze Spanish cities. It would be nice if the spanish could soak up some of the raging barbs, otherwise they will come from all directions to Osaka and we will be hard pressed to defend our tile improvements.

I thought some more about it and come to the conclusion that the chance that we could have iron in the city range of Osaka is to good to let pass. And for sure we shouldn't settle a copper city if there is a chance to get a better iron city. The copper locations are just too bad.
Also sailing right away isn't such a big advantage because the capital could use a bit more development first.
So I would research iron working now. That should be less than 20 turns assuming we work gems and gold in Osaka at size 3.
The capital could pop-rush the workboat now, grow back to size 4 (don't let it go unhappy) and work on a settler then.
This should give roughly the right timing if we do sailing after IW.
Osaka should build warriors after the barracks, which should be enough to defend for the next 20 turns.

got it and will play soon

i started playing. i started iron working too. i guess this means it will be difficult for us to get the cs slingshot. after a little bit of playing i explored the copper area to the east. there is also fish, a coast, and lots of trees, and stone (maybe for the pyramids). now i regret going for iron working. maybe should have gone for ag and animal husband. will post more later.

I don't see that fish would make the lousy spot much better. By the time you build a workboat this town would be long overrun by barbs. And the stone is worth nothing w/o masonry and food.
Sure pyramids is a nice wonder, but I don't see that we would have the production to spare anytime soon. And chopping 10 forests while the barbs are running around is also not as easy.
And BTW what the hell would you want with animal husbandry.
But anyway, if iron working should spare us the effort to build another high maintenance city, the investment will pay off in faster research overall. But still I don't believe in CS slingshot with Oracle. It just turns out we have to sidetrack too much. We may be able to get the Oracle in Osaka, but we will not have CoL in time then. So we could take CoL or metal casting with Oracle and later lighbulb CS with the prophet generated from Oracle. But for that we must not research masonry.

Well, another double post ;)

Interesting news from the progress chart.
CFR has a steep increase in culture. That can only mean they founded an early religion.

I don't see that fish would make the lousy spot much better. By the time you build a workboat this town would be long overrun by barbs. And the stone is worth nothing w/o masonry and food.
Sure pyramids is a nice wonder, but I don't see that we would have the production to spare anytime soon. And chopping 10 forests while the barbs are running around is also not as easy.
And BTW what the hell would you want with animal husbandry.
But anyway, if iron working should spare us the effort to build another high maintenance city, the investment will pay off in faster research overall. But still I don't believe in CS slingshot with Oracle. It just turns out we have to sidetrack too much. We may be able to get the Oracle in Osaka, but we will not have CoL in time then. So we could take CoL or metal casting with Oracle and later lighbulb CS with the prophet generated from Oracle. But for that we must not research masonry.

woah slow down there! :eek: i didnt even put a map up! i was just saying the "lousy" spot got better. the area is full of treed plains. also a good thing. i really dont think that iron will make that a city spot better. and i wasnt talking about getting the pyramids that soon, but it would be nice ;). it is really good to have nationalism later in the conquest. anyways one of the best ways to fight off barbs is to increase your area too.

animal husbandry??? dont you think that horses would make a better spot for a city than iron? horse archers? they are good barb deterers and will help us start our conquest. when i get early conquest they are mostly from early horse archers. that is why the hell i would want AH!

the cs slingshot is over rated in most cases, but when you UU is part of CS then it helps a lot. i dont see that it is very likely now, but....

Sure horse archers are nice. But that needs still another dead end tech - horseback riding, putting us even further away form the much needed CoL (note HBR is more expensive than iron working).
And it's not playing towards our aggressive trait. We get a free promotion on melee units not mounted.

Saved game link: here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Geezers_SG002_BC2320_01.Civ4SavedGame)

Trippagawa was born in a time where men of his stature lived a long time, if they weren’t killed in the wild by the madmen that wondered it. Trippagawa came to power unexpectedly after the last of the Klarius’ were killed in a revolution that began when people realized that the new metals that they have can help them place a part of the society into forced labor. There was indeed a lot to do. The Klarius’ left explicit future plans. Trippagawa followed some of these plans by continuing to try to find a stronger metal, for the Wildmen were upon us. From 2830BC till 2740BC Trippagawa’s warriors wandered the wild, looking for a place to settle, strange resources, and some sign of the notorious Wildmen. In 2740BC, Trippagawa used his new power of forced labor and ordered a clam boat fleet to be built immediately! It was in 2650BC that the first Wildman showed his ugly, scar-ridden face. All the warriors were immediately sent for, one brought news of a sweet plant that was found in the jungle. Trippagawa took note of this for future use, but back to the pressing issue. Trippagawa was pleased on how fast that the crab boat was built that he ordered the same thing to happen for training grounds for the military to be built. The slaves that built this ‘barracks’ were so useful they became warriors themselves very soon after the barracks were built. In 2530BC the first Wildman attacked Osaka. Our warriors fought them off bravely. One of the captured Wildmen told stories of a religion of multiple gods, called Hinduism, then he died not telling us were this superstition came from. And the wildmen kept coming and kept coming. Eventually our gem and gold mine were destroyed along with one warrior that was guarding it. Trippagawa was very upset about this. In the wake of this happening, in 2320BC Trippagawa committed seppuku.

new screenshots

roster:
Klarius
trippstowe (went)
Markh (up)
Juballs (on deck)
Sam Yeager
Thrallia (on vacation)

some notes:
does it bother anyone that i put these in multiple post?

i hope i didnt mess us up too much :blush: but now we have more warriors. at least four now. i started to move them out for fog busting(there are some good wooded hills for that). otherwise our mines will never get rebuilt. the settler in kyoto is 2 turns away from being done. and i started a work boat there for more food for more whipping. not much else to comment on besides we have to get those mines back in order! otherwise we will never have iron.

after we get iron, i think it might be time for a dot map.

@klarius: i forgot to say, good turn and good placement of osaka, the hill was a must. and i still think that the stone, copper and fish spot is a good spot.

ummm tripp.... you better hope markh didnt play the turnset!

i put you as skip because you said you would not be able to play during move, if you read the previous posts (#65) you will see that you were on skip and markh was up, and downloaded the save.

oh god... too much happening, i pray that markh didnt start. please tripp, next time re-read or post and ask. i mean, its thinkgs like this that could disqualify a team

ummm tripp.... you better hope markh didnt play the turnset!

i put you as skip because you said you would not be able to play during move, if you read the previous posts (#65) you will see that you were on skip and markh was up, and downloaded the save.

oh god... too much happening, i pray that markh didnt start. please tripp, next time re-read or post and ask. i mean, its thinkgs like this that could disqualify a team

oh sh*t! i missed all those posts for some reason. i was relying on the auto email update and i missed that one. ######(*^(@$@, i not only screwed up the game, but also the whole succession. i am really sorry guys. tripp commits seppeku (again)

oh god... too much happening, i pray that markh didnt start. please tripp, next time re-read or post and ask. i mean, its thinkgs like this that could disqualify a team

I doubt that it's a disqualification worry as the turn was still played by a team member. However it doesn't, shall we say, exactly help team spirit and harmony. :crazyeye:

I'll have a look at the save tomorrow and post my thoughts after reading any other posts that have turned up over night.

I did not play. I noticed that tripp took it in between. two days ago I downloaded the save, hit enter and immediately saved to come back again. Just wanted to have a view of the situation after anarchy, so everything is ok. I did not move anything, so no damage done.

I will take it this evening.

I looked at the save a bit. I wouldn't move out units for fogbusting until we have enough (at least 5-6) around Osaka to defend our improvements.
We already lost quite a bit research by now and that should not happen again. Rather sacrifice some troops than let the barbs pillage.
And note at monarch difficulty we get no bonus against barbs. Our troops are better by promotions, but we still will lose some battles. And two barbs in the same turn will frequently be to much even on defensive tiles. So we should have reserves in Osaka to reinforce the good tiles. And the gold hill should always be defended by at least as many troops as there are attackers.
On the gems we can counterattack so can take some more chances. Still there I would like a guard on the forest east to take most of the attacks. When there is a road on the gems again this can be reinforced in 1 turn from the capital.

Well, another double post ;)

Interesting news from the progress chart.
CFR has a steep increase in culture. That can only mean they founded an early religion.

They could have built the Stonehenge. Gives you a free obelisk in each city and is pretty cheap to build (120 hammers). 3 chops and you have it. If they have settled in a location like we did it would have been no big problem if they started it early. I did not check how far they are in their game to see what is more likely.

They could have built the Stonehenge.
No, too early.
They generated about 90 extra culture from turn 32 to 50. No chance to get Stonehenge this early. But it fits well with founding a religion just with their first save and that's feasible.

I didn't check the chart. Then obviously they have founded a religion.

I've had another look or two at the save and it looks worse each time. :lol:

Realistically I think we can forget about any offensive action against Izzy or anyone else unless we want to lose Osaka. Hmmm.:confused: Oh well maybe not....

I think we need more scouting around Kyoto. How big is the larger island? Does it have any other resources? Do the isands lead to the mainland or at least a rather larger island? I think we should MM Kyoto to have a citzen specialist. It only delays it's growth by 1 turn and we can use the work boat to do the scouting. Once we know what's out there we'll have a better idea as to when we need Sailing.

As far as research goes I wonder if it's worth reducing it to zero for a while and then researching at 100% somewhat later on?

Once we get the gold and gems connected again we should be able to grow Osaka up to 6 but Osaka has no culture to allow it to expand. There's probably a lot to be said for researching Mysticism, not Masonry as I said earlier :blush: , so that we can build an obelisk in Osaka.

I agree with klarius that we need more warriors in Osaka to stop the barbs pillaging our mines.

Please don't use citizen specialists in Kyoto.
Our science is delayed enough already by the missing improvements and by settler building before growth.
We shouldn't waste another 2gpt for 15 turns.
It doesn't help us much to scout before we are really ready to research sailing and we should settle at least one of the islands for sure no matter if we can reach a continent.

BTW there's another team with an early religion. Fistful of Dynamite has the increase in culture very early. Either they didn't settle to have such high science or they got it from a hut.

Please don't use citizen specialists in Kyoto.
Our science is delayed enough already by the missing improvements and by settler building before growth.
We shouldn't waste another 2gpt for 15 turns.
It doesn't help us much to scout before we are really ready to research sailing and we should settle at least one of the islands for sure no matter if we can reach a continent.

Well once Kyoto grows in two turns it'll probably have to be MM'd to slow growth to stop it going into unhappiness anyway. I was merely proposing that we do it slightly earlier.

At the moment I think we're between a rock and a hard place so the more info we have to inform our decisions the better.

Still, using a citizen instead of working coast loses 2 gpt. If we want to avoid running into unhappiness we should use the no growth button.
But we can grow to size 5 - next turn the whip unhappiness will go away. And then there is still 2 or 3 (above size 4 we have less food surplus) turns to complete the settler.
And then we could grow to unhappy 6 to have population for whipping. But that already takes quite a few turns because health will come into play. If we really use the workboat for scouting we will probably not even reach it.

Still, using a citizen instead of working coast loses 2 gpt. If we want to avoid running into unhappiness we should use the no growth button.


we should never use one of the auto buttons in a succession game. no growth should be set manually. with all the fishes and clams in this town, there should be a lot of whipping or it would not hurt to have a specialist to stop it from growing. we should watch that unhappiness goes away before we whip each time though, its not worth the compounded unhappiness.

The no growth button is different than using the governor. It avoids growth even if you have manually configured food surplus.
In Kyoto you cannot avoid growth by configuring the tiles, if you want max commerce.
If you want to finish something and then build a settler or worker, you should avoid growth to have the maximum food surplus for the following build. Then the no growth button should be used.

The no growth button is different than using the governor. It avoids growth even if you have manually configured food surplus.
In Kyoto you cannot avoid growth by configuring the tiles, if you want max commerce.
If you want to finish something and then build a settler or worker, you should avoid growth to have the maximum food surplus for the following build. Then the no growth button should be used.

oh wow i didnt realize that. i thought it was just part of the governor. but where does the extra food go? it just is wasted it looks like. i think it would be better to have unhappy people, as long as they dont starve you. you can at least whip them or eventually make them happy. so i am against using this button, unless of course the extra unhappy citizen will make the city starving.

Still, using a citizen instead of working coast loses 2 gpt. If we want to avoid running into unhappiness we should use the no growth button.
But we can grow to size 5 - next turn the whip unhappiness will go away. And then there is still 2 or 3 (above size 4 we have less food surplus) turns to complete the settler.
And then we could grow to unhappy 6 to have population for whipping. But that already takes quite a few turns because health will come into play. If we really use the workboat for scouting we will probably not even reach it.

Well in the games I've been playing recently I find that whipping results in an unhappy person for 10/15 turns depending on the whether it is standard or epic i.e. if you whip at 6 pop for one pop then the unhappiness will stay at 6 because of the 'we cannot forget your cruelty'. So if you want to whip it either needs to be 2 or more pop once you have reached the unhappiness level or you should whip at 4 pop.

But in any case you are going to reduce the available gold if you whip. If we use a specialist once Kyoto grows to 4 then we do not gain an extra 2 gold but it won't reduce our current gold.

I know that we're a bit stuffed at the moment but I also think that we need a better appreciation of what is out there.

Okay, a little more detail. ;)
We have currently only 4 happy faces because of whip unhappiness. This will go away next turn, then we can grow to size 5 still staying happy (in 2 + 6 turns). We then could whip the workboat, if we think we need it urgently and go back to happy 4.
By that we have the workboat in 9 turns, while always working the maximum coastal tiles.

If we apply a citizen now, we will grow to 4 in 3 turns and to 5 in another 8 turns and still have to wait another 4 turns for the workboat to come out. All the time we have worked 1 coastal tile less.

So if you urgently want the workboat we should grow and whip. But I would rather not have the workboat soon at all, but just grow and stay at size 5 to get us a bit further in tech.

Okay, a little more detail. ;)
We have currently only 4 happy faces because of whip unhappiness. This will go away next turn, then we can grow to size 5 still staying happy (in 2 + 6 turns). We then could whip the workboat, if we think we need it urgently and go back to happy 4.
By that we have the workboat in 9 turns, while always working the maximum coastal tiles.

If we apply a citizen now, we will grow to 4 in 3 turns and to 5 in another 8 turns and still have to wait another 4 turns for the workboat to come out. All the time we have worked 1 coastal tile less.


Ok that bit sounds good. I don't know how to work out how long it takes to grow another pop so I'm grateful for your calculations. :goodjob:


So if you urgently want the workboat we should grow and whip. But I would rather not have the workboat soon at all, but just grow and stay at size 5 to get us a bit further in tech.


My point was that you can't stay at size 5 if you want to work the fish and crabs for max gold. Kyoto will keep growing because of all the excess food unless it's mm'd to use less food and hence generate less gold. If you're right about how the 'No growth button works then fine. However I have sneaking suspicion that the game will create specialists for you. The next player can tell us how it turned out in practice, :)

However I have sneaking suspicion that the game will create specialists for you. The next player can tell us how it turned out in practice, :)

no i actually tested it out. with the no growth buttton on, it will still say that your town will grow in a turn, but it doesnt grow. it changes nothing as far as where you have placed your villagers to work. it seems that the extra food is just wasted. so it doesnt look like it will automatically make speciallist.

what is so bad about the unhappy people?? they only take up two food, right? and we can used them later to whip for a forge or library, so i say let them be unhappy until we are in risk of starving!

my suggestion: work the tiles with the most output(clams and fish). once we only have a surplus of only ONE food then start on a WORKER(this worker can go with the settler when it goes out). otherwise, produce those unhappy slaves. use the next work boat to explore. and then build more in the mean time to improve the clams and fish. i dont know why i built the settler, i think it was suggested somewhere else, i see that it was a mistake to do this, and i shouldnt have, not at least until we were in trouble of starving.:blush:

again sorry about the turnset, it was a very difficult one and i did the best i could at the time. i had to pull back my warriors from the gem mine because i was getting attacked my three warriors and only had two in the town. hindsight is always 20/20.

Building, but not completing the settler was my suggestion, but it should have been done exactly at the happy limit, to get max commerce. If we would have been able to work the commerce tiles in Osaka we would be through with IW in about 3-5 turns from now and would have about 10 more turns to sailing. That would have fit nice to pop a galley at size 6.

So now we are a little late in science and in fact could fit in another pop rush.

Building a worker being unhappy is totally unefficient. If you need a worker some time, prebuild it while happy with 7 food surplus. Then build something else while growing to unhappy. And if you have to finish another build before you go for the worker, then it's really the time to use the no growth button. It doesn't help to blindly go into a lot unhappy population. One should plan ahead what and when to pop-rush.
The next rush would be a galley which needs 2 pop. So there having just reached size 6 is optimal but not really necessary.
Some time later we will want to rush a library for 3 pop. That's the time we really need at least pop 6 and pop 7 would be optimal.

BTW another feature of the no growth button:
If you fill the bin completely with it and then build a settler or worker you will grow by one when you switch it off.
That's nice when whip happiness just vanishes. You can grow to take advantage of the increased happy faces w/o having to switch away from your settler/worker build.

ok here it is :

0) 2320BC : change tiles in Osaka, delay growth by 2 turns, but get the warrior still in 2 and have more gold for research

IBT : both barbs suicide on our warriors in the forrest
another comes from the North

1) 2290BC : nothing

IBT : another barb from the South, the northern one is now at Osaka

2) 2260BC : worker starts mining the gems

IBT : the northern barb suicides on the warriors guarding our worker

3) 2230BC : nothing

IBT : 1 new barb warrior from NE and 1 new barb warrior from the SE
1 barb warrior closes in on Osaka

4) 2200BC : nothing

IBT : 1 barb warrior suicides at Osaka, the other two close in on our worker
1 new barb warrior from the SW

5) 2170BC : warrior kills the barb warrior that stepped on the Oasis
1 warrior loses to the other barb warrior, chances were 90.1% for our warrior, otherwise the barb could have attckacked containing a wounded warrior

IBT : 1 barb warrior closes in on Osaka, a new one appears in the far South

6) 2140BC : nothing

IBT : nothing

7) 2110BC : gems are connected again

IBT : 1 barb warrior suicides at Osaka
1 closes in on Osaka and is not interested in our gems mine
1 new one from SW

8) 2080BC : nothing

IBT : 2 barb warriors suicide at Osaka

9) 2050BC : 2 warriors and the worker move on the gold hill
1 barb warrior is at Osaka

IBT : the arb warrior walks by and is more interested in the gems mine
1 new barb warrior appears from the NE

10) 2020BC : nothing

IBT : the barb warrior suicides on the defenses on our gems mine
1 closes in on the gems mine and another one appears in the SW
Judaism has been founded

11) 1990BC : nothing

IBT : 1 barb warrior suicides on our defenses on our gems mine
1 barb warrior closes in at the gold hill
1 new barb from the West

12) 1960BC : nothing

IBT : 1 barb warrior suicides on the defenses on the gold hill
we enter the classical era
IW is in and we have Iron right NW of Osaka in city range, research is set to sailing

13) 1930BC : nothing

IBT : 1 barb closes in on Osaka, 2 new ones from S and SW

14) 1900BC : moved two warriors and the worker on the iron hill.

Another warrior will finish next IBT. If you let research at 0% and turn research to 100% next turn we have enough gold to research sailing in 7 instead of 11 at 60%. Sailing can still be changed if we want anything else as I had research at 0%, but sailing would be my favorite now to settle the islands at Kyoto.

I used 0% - 100% research for IW, too which saved us a few turns.

And a pic for you and the lurkers.

Well, that looks a lot better now.
Gyathaar is after all not completely evil :crazyeye::devil:. Note that probably every thinkable good city location near the start will have the iron at least after expansion.

A few MM notes:
I also think we should do sailing now. In this case Kyoto should complete the settler now. The build has already started to decay and it would take very long to finish it if we would grow to 6. When we have sailing immediately build galley and rush it the next turn.
We need 4 population in Osaka soon, to work all 4 strong tiles. So I would work a forest instead of the plain, exchanging one food for one coin for a few turns.
I would build a road on the iron first so we can shift warriors around on all tiles we want to defend.

And please, when iron is connected don't go out to build city raider swords. First get a couple of axes, to defend Osaka and our tiles. There will be soon barb archers and not much later barb axes.

Researchwise I would like to concentrate on getting CoL. So i would go mysticism-meditation-priesthood-writing-CoL. But getting to writing faster by other ways for a faster library in Kyoto is also an option.

I think our best bet to get our empire real going is to build the 2 island towns, build courthouses everywhere including Kyoto and then build the palace in Osaka.

So I would work a forest instead of the plain, exchanging one food for one coin for a few turns.
I would build a road on the iron first so we can shift warriors around on all tiles we want to defend.

I was exchanging these tiles a few times during my turns. Of course a road first on the iron. We need fast shifting of units. Hopefully barb archers do not appear too soon.

i agree on the new science path, iron is gonna do us wonders in defending right now.

however i have one concern.
we are pushing out military units for defenses which is a must, but how far are we behind in bilding some cities. i know it will be expensive, but sooner or later most of the area on the mainland will be taken by other civs.

theres generous amounts of land out there and yes we can wait... i just hope we dont wait too long

With sailing we can settle the islands at Kyoto. That will give us 4 cities which enables us to build the palace in Osaka. Without the cities around Kyoto we cannot afford any new city on the main island and we cannot build the palace. The barbs will keep Izzy busy for a while, so we have still some time. Moreover while there is room left Izzy will concentrate on settling and her defenses will be quite weak. With swords we can take the land we need if we have to. If we cannot settle new towns we can take them from Izzy, but there are still many turns to play. We will see. First we have to connect the iron and get the two additional cities. Then we can see whether it is possible to build the palace in Osaka right away.

I used 0% - 100% research for IW, too which saved us a few turns.


good turnset! :goodjob: that is a relief about the iron.

how does the 0%-100% thing save turns without a rounding factor? i thought it was only saved turns if you have a library or market or something else that gives you a % increase on science or commerce. just curious. :confused:

It depends how much money you make. When I took over the save IW was due in 20 and with working one more commerce tile in Kyoto and 0% - 100% we could make enough cash to reduce the research time a bit. There is an article in the strategy section on it.

It depends how much money you make. When I took over the save IW was due in 20 and with working one more commerce tile in Kyoto and 0% - 100% we could make enough cash to reduce the research time a bit. There is an article in the strategy section on it.

yeah i have read the article on MM'ing. it was even actually posted again on this thread. but that article says that the 0%-100% only matters if you have some kind of adjuster, like a library or market that would allow for a rounding error.

Maybe I was fooled by Kyoto and Osaka growing which made more commerce and maybe then it would have been the same number of turns with the research slider at 50%. I would have to replay the turns that way. Maybe I will do it tomorrow to see how it turns out.

Maybe I was fooled by Kyoto and Osaka growing which made more commerce and maybe then it would have been the same number of turns with the research slider at 50%. I would have to replay the turns that way. Maybe I will do it tomorrow to see how it turns out.

let us know. i am not trying to say you are wrong, i am curious to know if i need to use it in the future too!

Well, you might want to read this article (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146163)

Already without multipliers by improvements there are multipliers for prerequisites and civs knowing the tech. And there are truncation operations everywhere.
100% may not be the optimal percentage for a given commerce, but if you don't calculate it exactly, it loses less on average than other random percentages.

Well, you might want to read this article (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146163)

Already without multipliers by improvements there are multipliers for prerequisites and civs knowing the tech. And there are truncation operations everywhere.
100% may not be the optimal percentage for a given commerce, but if you don't calculate it exactly, it loses less on average than other random percentages.

ok that explains a lot. so it does matter. the fact that you would have higher numbers coming from the slider for the prerequisites/civ knowledge modifieres would make the all or nothing slider actually gain a beaker or two along the way. man, firaxis should have not had rounding and calculated to the 10,000th. i wonder if people would use the all or nothing slider then? probably so. :p

still on vacation, but I got internet access finally. Everything looks good :)

Question though: we obviously want to lightbulb one of our UU techs to reduce the research time for Samurai's.

Do we want to avoid Masonry and lightbulb CS with a prophet, or should we get pyramids or a forge/engineer specialist and lightbulb Machinery? Or we could try to do both...do an MC Slingshot, rush a forge, then MM an engineer to get a fast Prophet for CS, and then a GE for Machinery.

Just a thought and it may be impossible, I'm not a GP expert.

Also, I don't recall the Palace needing any # of cities, but I believe it requires Masonry to build it.
Things definitely look up right now though with iron next to Osaka.

Do not know whether we will be able to build wonders. The palace already will keep Osaka busy for a while even with chopping. It is 160 hammers.

You do not need masonry for the palace, but 4 cities. Masonry was necessary in Civ3.:D

:bump:

roster:
klarius
trippstowe
markh played
juballs2001 up
Sam Yeager on deck
Thrallia (on vacation)

Juballs do you have it :confused:.

ya i got it... i thought sam was before me, but i guessed wrong.
i can take it today

one question sort of....

we are willing to build 2 island cities near kyoto which for the time being will only minimally increase our -gpt. but once the palace is built in osaka the gpt problems will retunr even with courthouses... i can see what we are doing and it makes sense, because once we start defeating the AI, their cities will be cheaper, but with these 4 cities... its not like we have 4 very productive cities that it we go to war, we can crank out a decent war machine to topple the AI on the mainland.

just my 2 cents

I don't really understand what the question is, or what should be the alternative.

The three islands cities will be able to pay for themselves with courthouses after the palace moved. At size 4 they will produce 9 gpt working 4 coastal tiles and have something like 6-8 maintenance with courthouses. So they are neutral or of benefit to our empire.
Before the palace move they are of immediate benefit, because they generate a trade route

If we don't get the palace to Osaka any city in this region will not be able to pay for itself for a long time. They need to build a courthouse first then they will need cottages to generate enough gold (outside of Osaka I don't see high commerce resources).

So I just don't see any alternative. If we go out to settle or capture near Osaka right away, we will not be able to keep more than 1-2 cities at one time and then have to develop them for a long time. While we do this our research is near zero.

One other small remark. You talk about mainland, like this would be the only landmass.
We only know Spain. I see no indication to assume that there are more AI civs on the island of Osaka.

I would think that we want to build those island cities as soon as possible, and once we get the palace over to Osaka, perhaps build one or two production cities to enhance our warfaring abilities?

btw, the map type is fractal, yes? so it is possible that there are civilizations past Spain...although I would expect most of them to be on other land masses.

I don't really understand what the question is, or what should be the alternative.

The three islands cities will be able to pay for themselves with courthouses after the palace moved. At size 4 they will produce 9 gpt working 4 coastal tiles and have something like 6-8 maintenance with courthouses. So they are neutral or of benefit to our empire.
Before the palace move they are of immediate benefit, because they generate a trade route

If we don't get the palace to Osaka any city in this region will not be able to pay for itself for a long time. They need to build a courthouse first then they will need cottages to generate enough gold (outside of Osaka I don't see high commerce resources).

So I just don't see any alternative. If we go out to settle or capture near Osaka right away, we will not be able to keep more than 1-2 cities at one time and then have to develop them for a long time. While we do this our research is near zero.

One other small remark. You talk about mainland, like this would be the only landmass.
We only know Spain. I see no indication to assume that there are more AI civs on the island of Osaka.

makes sense... i speak of mainland because it is our mainland. the only large land mass we know of right now

a little update.

im on turn 7 its 1690BC
and....

basically i have just been killing barbs, but the mine on iron is complete.
now should we
1) slow research and just upgrade all our warriors to axemen
or
2) build new axemen at a rate of 13 turns per 1. when osaka grows i think that changes from 13 to about 7 or 8

any thoughts...

i would go with option 1... slowing research i believe is the smarter move.
because it gives us the option to build more workers, 1 or 2. and then once 2 more cities are founded, we can start the palace knowing that we have a legitimate army able to defend from barbs.

awaiting your thoughts until i complete the remainder of my turnset

I'm absolutely against upgrading warriors. That's extremely expensive and will shut down research for a long time.
We are already far behind in research and we really need CoL in our situation.

The question is also what you want to do with the axes. I don't see the benefit in attacking Spain to raze 1 or 2 villages and I doubt you could do anything else. Axes are not good enough against cities with culture. For that one should have city raider III swords.

.. but here is my concern

we are running at anywhere from 20-60% science right now... and the gpt deficit is growing with every warrior we build.

i think that by the time we build the four cities, get code of laws, and continue building axes/swords we will be running -gpt at o% science.

and with upgrading the current warriors who can all get to 10/17 exp. they have the experience needed to kill barb axes and archers until we build the palace.


i believe that upgrading is the much better way to go

There's something wrong in your math. You cannot have so many warriors that you pay major unit cost on turn 7.
And building axes or swords now and losing a warrior occasionally to barb archers, will keep the unit cost low.

alright w/e we will do it your way

my turnset

0-1900
-change plains work to forest for growth

IBT
-barb attacks and we are victorious

1-1870
-move warriors/heal warriors

turns 2-4
1840-1780
- mm'ing

5-1750
-brabs enter area, and attack but we win again

6-1720
-warriors heal

7-1690
-iron mine is complete

8-1660
- ....nothing much

9-1630
-barbs attack, we win

10-1600
-switch production to axeman. currently have 7 warriors, i believe 4/7 are max. upgraded experience wise

11-1570
-kill more barbs

IBT- Sailing in, Mysticism in 6

12-1540
-4 tiles have been completed and osaka is size 4.
we make a axe every 6 turns i believe, but working thses 4 tiles leaves osaka stagnant.

i decided to stop here

roster:
klarius - on deck
trippstowe
markh
juballs2001- just played
Sam Yeager - UP
Thrallia (on vacation)

Well, looks good so far (though I would have some minor complaints, but don't want to look to picky ;)).

Kyoto should switch to galley now and rush next turn for 2 pop. The settler will then complete the turn after that. Don't rush right away for 3 pop.
We should build the second settler at size 4 right away. This should fit nicely then to reach size 6 again when writing comes in, so we can rush a library. Going down to pop 3 now would delay the library.

Mysticism should be researched at higher slider setting. It's known by Spain, so we get a small bonus. But this is such a low percentage that we need about 30 beakers per turn to get a bonus beaker. So put the slider to 100% now.

I would build a couple of swords in Osaka after the axe (we can do 2 swords in 11 turns, so it's not really one turn more per sword). Kill barbs with them to get experience. Don't use up all promotions. If barb axes should come thick we need shock promotion.
If we can do a small military adventure we rather want city raider or cover, so we should stay flexible.

The next action of the worker should be a road to the river, which connects to Coast and by that to Spain. After that I would road and maybe pre-chop forests.

Do not know whether we will be able to build wonders. The palace already will keep Osaka busy for a while even with chopping. It is 160 hammers.

You do not need masonry for the palace, but 4 cities. Masonry was necessary in Civ3.:D

since we are building a palace in osaka, shouldnt we reconsdier building towns on the small islands above kyoto?

We cannot build the palace, before we have two more towns and we cannot afford two towns near Osaka, before we build the palace. BTW the palace is 240h on epic. That's still quite a few turns even if we put in 3 forests.

We could think of building one town near Kyoto and one (very) near Osaka. But defending both Osaka towns will be difficult, if we first build a settler instead of military.

We cannot build the palace, before we have two more towns and we cannot afford two towns near Osaka, before we build the palace. BTW the palace is 240h on epic. That's still quite a few turns even if we put in 3 forests.

We could think of building one town near Kyoto and one (very) near Osaka. But defending both Osaka towns will be difficult, if we first build a settler instead of military.

yeah what a conundrum. are there many barbs coming from the north? when i played i think maybe one came from that area. maybe izzy has most of that land fog busted. so maybe a town to the NE would not have to have super defences. we would only have to worry about barbs from the S on both towns. if i remember correctly there is a hill to the NE that will get both the copper and the stone in the range, not much for money though.

btw, if izzy is up there on a pennisula, then we have done a good job blocking barbs for her.