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

Hi everybody

Just to say that I am here, paying attention, and waiting for someone else to come along and show initiative. I have played all the Civ 4 GOTM so far (except 9, which I will start tonight), but am totally new to the succession games.

Alan

Hey, I'm here too. This is also my first SG. Would one of the SGOTM vets explain the download/submit process for SGOTM?

Some of the things I've thought about so far:
1) Maintenance costs will be high, cause our cities will be far from the palace, so that means we should make sure to get CoL rather quickly, so we don't go bankrupt. We may even think of moving our palace at some point.

2) Kyoto will need to use the whip extensively, so bronze working is a major early goal.

3) As for 2nd city placement, I don't think that settling with the rice in the fat cross is very important. It's not connected to fresh water, so with even a farm, it just gives us 4 food, which makes it worse than the flood plain we're sitting on right now. It's best virtue is that we'll get 2 health with a granary, which we'll get as long as it's in our borders.

4) Also, the 2nd city won't have a palace, so won't get a border pop until we build an obelisk or library. We need to make sure that it is going to be productive early with its basic 9 squares. Maybe that bumps Mysticism/Writing up in the research order.

5) Raging barbs...does that mean barbs appear sooner, higher prob. of barbs appearing in an empty square or more advanced barbs? Some combo of the three?

Welcome to team one guys.
It is great to get some new blood.


The dowload process is pretty straightforward. There is a progress/results page that has the saves also people usualy put a link to this save in there message. You do not put the file directly as an attachment in you e-mail. You pick up the save the same way, either click on the link in the message or go to the progress results page.

I would like to get Harok back on the team. I will try to PM him.

Just killing some time, so I will add my own thoughts to grangerm's

1) the only reason not to move the palace is if we can get the forbidden palace built before we get around to moving it. Even then we probably will find it much cheaper to have both on the mainland.

3,4) I had totally missed these. It means that we do not have any obviously good places to settle. The rice is not hugely interesting, the fish is too far away for an early benefit. The warrior does not have an obvious move to uncover stuff. It might be worth spending a couple of turns to scout about, but if we lose the settler to a pack of wolves it will be a embarassing debut. But we might be saving a fair amount of gold by not settling immediately.

Perhaps move warrior E to see the hills and forest over there, and then settler SW, NW? to uncover another 7 squares? It can still move to that coastal plain for the rice and the fish in the fat cross if nothing else appears, and settle one turn late.

4) A swift obelisk would be pretty useful. An alternative might be to gamble on Hinduism, as the second city will (certainly?) be the holy city. Early BW would be nice, but there is no desperate rush for worker techs for Kyoto, and it is on a path for the oracle.

While I am thinking about it, I shall add
6) the squares 2 NW and 2 NE of Kyoto are productive, but the corresponding squares in the south are not, so there must be land to the north. One border expansion should reveal coast squares, and a second land.

7) It should be possible to work out exactly what we can do with Kyoto, in terms of what to build in what order, how long each would take, when it grows, and when we can whip. It might not be of any benefit to us, but it might be useful to know when Kyoto will be ready to build a granary, lighthouse, library when picking techs. I assume that Kyoto will become a GP farm, though it will be difficult to get any helpful wonders with so little production, and the specialists will suffer if we need to whip repeatedly to get the normal buildings.

1) We will definitely need to move the palace, maybe after city 3 or 4. By then we hopefully also can pick a good central location

3,4) there is no obvious place for the second city we should scout a bit before settling it. This will also hold off the maintained penalty for distance between cities when city two comes in. A question I have is when do animals start to appear, once they start and if we have not plopped our settler down we should do the slow settler (only one space a turn so it can run away. I would think we could move around for several turns, better to find a good site than settle quick because we will already be generating research at the first city.


4) I see two possible tech starts
Mysticism- Poly a gamble for Hindu which would continue to an oracle slingshot

Mining- BW - For early war. An extreme version of this would be to hold up on settling until BW is discovered, found on top of bronze and set off immediately to war.
If you do have access to coast from Kyoto then sailing could come early, Pottery should be stuffed in somewhere for cottages

7) I would think to start workboat, workboat, workboat. After that library for specialists. If we discover Hindu on the continent we have a problem generating the GP for the shrine if we start pumping specialists in Kyoto early.


8) I would move the settler SW,SW to start. and move warrior east

Hi, just checking in. I'm new to succession GOTM but I have played a few regular GOTM.

I did a little test game, this is what I came up with:

-The wild animals appear in 3820 BC for this map type with raging barbarians.

-The real barbarians are born in 2920 BC, a mix of archers and warriors.

-Having two cities at approximately this distance will cost 4-5 gold/turn and bring our tech rate down to 80% from the get go.

I think our first priority for this start is to find the optimal location for the first continental city, as this will be our base for further expansion. With wild animals appearing in 3820, an unprotected Settler would have a maximum of 6 turns to find a suitable city spot. I think it would be well worth it to scout around a bit before settling, especially as a second city costs us a bunch in research output.
I agree with Grangerm that BW is a first research priority because of whipping and chopping, plenty of forest will be something to look for for our new city.

Following last months SGOTM, i noticed some people posting transcripts of some kind of game logging mechanism, can anyone of you advice?

Looking forward to playing with you,

TDK

I think it's a good idea to scout around before we settle too. If we could find gold or grassland gems, that would pay for the maintenance right there.

Since we are probably going to settle later than usual, we might want to build a warrior before the worker, just to make sure we've got a couple of warriors on hand to deal with the inevitable barbs.

What about worker stealing? On monarch, the AI doesn't get a free worker does it? So that would mean worker stealing would have to occur later, if at all.

Our tech pace will be slower at the start cause of the maintenance, so we may end up bumping against the happiness limit before we have slavery and something to whip in Kyoto. Then, we'll have to decide what is more important: the 1 hammer a citizen gets us or the 2 commerce the water gets us.

For first moves, I'd say warrior E to hill and settler SW, then to a hill (if possible).

I don't think sailing is that important, since we can explore with workboats. The downfall would be that we can't explore land (and pop huts). But since Kyoto is destined to have anemic production, it's not like we'd be able to send out numerous scouts or warriors.

Hey there guys, I was late signing up so I am happy to either be a dedicated lurker giving my thoughts and opinions without actually playing or being a full time player. No worries either way, just let me know.

Initial thoughts without having tried any sort of tests (which usually means worthless thoughts) to see how bad maintenace costs are for this crazy start was to move the warrior East onto the hill. If he finds nothing good move the settler NW and found a city. Both cities create a workboat for their water resources. Research is geared toward getting a CS slingshot as soon as possible so I would go something like Pottery, Mining, BW, Writing (whip/chop libraries), Myst, Med, Priest, CoL grab CS from chopped Oracle.

City 2 would produce a worker after workboat and cottage the Floodplain asap, after that it just needs to build something for culture, a Settler for a 3rd city to claim iron or copper/horses to capture an iron resource, barracks, and some units. :eek:

This game will most likely be won by Sams/Cats so getting to Sams as quickly as possible will be the single most important thing IMO.

I'm going to play my broken record one last time for each team:


Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=180489) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

Anything I post there will NOT be repeated individually in every team thread. You may even find some useful information there now :p

For first moves, I'd say warrior E to hill and settler SW, then to a hill (if possible).


I think that if there is a hill beyond the square SW, we would be able to see it. So we will not get onto a hill in the first turn with the settler. It looks like another grassland forest 2W of the settler, then grassland? all the way round the south. It is not totally green, so two might be plains. On the east side are two hills, and a forest 2E of the warrior.

There are no blue circles in the picture. Can you turn them off? Otherwise the AI thinks that our starting position is sucky too. I think moving NW and settling would be adequate, as there are several forests. It would be a reason to go for mysticism faster. Another downside is that you do not even get the river bonuses from it though, so I would be happy to explore for a couple of turns.

City 2 would produce a worker after workboat and cottage the Floodplain asap, after that it just needs to build something for culture, a Settler for a 3rd city to claim iron or copper/horses to capture an iron resource, barracks, and some units.

Assuming something for culture is an obelisk, rather than stonehenge, then it will still take 15 turns for the culture expansion. With 3 hammers/turn, or a suitably timed whip, we can get the workboat built after the obelisk but in time for the expansion, unless you want to go scouting with it?

I'm going to play my broken record one last time for each team:



Anything I post there will NOT be repeated individually in every team thread. You may even find some useful information there now :p

Apparently settling in place will cost 7gpt.

We start with 8 for the palace, 1 for Kyoto, 2 for a fish, and count another 1+1 for the new city, for a total of 13?, so settling will drop us down from 11 science to 6. And even with that fp cottaged, the second city will be a long time getting to 7 commerce. One more reason to go wandering.

Anything I post there will NOT be repeated individually in every team thread. You may even find some useful information there now :p

Bah I just signed up a couple of hours ago. ;)

As always thanks Alan.

I created a test game using the same settings and then editing the map to match what we can see (although the cities are backwards). This should help give an idea of just how much it hurts building that second city.

Signing in. Sorry for the delay but I been away for a few days.

Looks like a very interesting start. I'll try out the test game and post some thoughts.

1. The major strategy needed is how to deal with the barbs.
They attack cities at 2600bc and with raging there are too many to handle with warriors or a lot of luck. The extra maintenance also makes tech pace slow.

I played 5 quick test games and lost the 2nd city in 3 games where I took 'some' risk with the barbs.

I will try a few different strategies later today but at the moment I am stuck going straight to archery and building an archer which even with micromanagment cannot be done much before barbs start attacking.

There is little land so fog busting it all would be okay but the problem is getting 3-4 warriors built before 2600bc.

The AI does not seem to struggle with barbs (probably as they have archers from start). It may be worth building first city in between AI cities to protect from barbs, but I will need to try this out.

2. Warrior as 3rd build for happiness in kyoto

3. a square with even 1 gold makes a big difference, so working flood plains at start in 2nd city works well given 1.

4. Religion would be good given food abundance and happiness limit but again given 1, researching 2 techs will be difficult.

Just played the test game, managed to lose the settler 3760 BC to a bear. What are we looking for if we go exploring? head straight for BW and settle by copper? food bonuses? If barbs are going to be a problem do we want to look for a hill to settle on?

I am thinking that settling 1NW might not be so bad. Pay the 7 gpt (less 2 from the new city), build warriors, obelisk, workboat and look for copper, horses, and good city sites. The problem is then that the third city will cost 8 or 9 gpt to claim the copper, but we need 4 cities before we can start moving the palace, so at some point we will need to pay through the nose for all that city upkeep.

An alternative is to whip a galley in Kyoto, and try and ship a settler over to the island that must be to the north.

Kyoto has 5 happy, once we build a warrior, and 2 health + 2 for working fish and clams. I found that whipping every 15 turns was not enough to deal with the excess population I could feed, while building 4 workboats, granary, library and lighthouse. Ended up starting stonehenge, and then resorted to building settlers to use all the food.

Another point, any trade routes with other civs need to link with Kyoto, and it could be mid game before Kyoto links with our second city.

I played the test game a couple of times too.

First time, I went Hunting->Archery->Mining->BW->Mysticism. I founded the 2nd city immediately (NW) and built 3 warriors, then an archer then finally a worker at size 4. I didn't have a barb problem, but the Incas had settled their 4th city before I even got my first settler out. So I doubt that's the way to go.

2nd time I waited to found the 2nd city till I researched Mysticism. I stole Hyauna's worker, which he did not take kindly to and razed an empty Osaka.

3rd time, I founded NW again, went Pottery->Myst->Writing->Mining->BW->Agri->Alph. I went worker->warrior->obelisk in Osaka, cottaged the FP and roaded some to connect my two fog buster warriors to give them some logistics help. I built a library in Kyoto when I could (though I couldn't whip it cause I didn't have BW till later) and ran 2 scientist. I popped a GS and used it on Math, cause I was planning to move the capitol and didn't think a Academy would be worth enough. I chopped/whipped the palace at around 200 BC (which saved about 20 gold in maintenance). But though I had little problem with barbs, I was last in score and the Incas were already sporting CG2 longbowman :eek: from the Oracle.

I think we should explore a little before we settle, at least make a little circuit. We should make sure there's not a much better city spot right outside our view. I'd like to see a better food resource or a commerce resource or an early happiness resource. But seeing as how they are trying to make this harder than usual, that may be too optimistic.

If there's nothing special in the immediate area, settling NW looks like our best bet. If we wait 4 turns to settle, we lose those 4 turns toward the worker, but get about 20 science toward our first tech that would have been wasted. I don't think that's a big loss.

Also, we should use a workboat to find a route to another city from Kyoto to get our first trade route going. It's free commerce.

Oh, yeah. Thanks for the test game, Harok.

Hi Guys,

Sorry that I didn't sign up with you. But I just don't have time right now. Anyway I'll try to follow your progress and of course root for you.

Good luck!

Been reduced to playing around with excel to produce some numbers for Kyoto.

Depending on the number of worker specialists, it will take Kyoto some 40-50 turns to hit 5 pop, build 2 workboats and a warrior to get rid of the "we demand some protection" unhappy face, and will generate some 600 odd commerce.

Mysticism, mining, BW and pottery will cost 686 beakers, and city 2 will start costing 5/turn. My current temptation would be to start with mining, and explore. When we settle we can build a second warrior, and research mysticism if needed. We can even switch and come back to mining. Then BW to whip , then pottery, writing. Heading straight for BW will take 33 turns without founding a city, which I think will be far to long to wander around looking for a city site.

I suppose that Kyoto has enough food to ignore pottery, and we can get writing from priesthood if we go straight for the oracle. But without BW, it will take forever to build a library.

Also, by increasing the number of workers, we can aim for slower growth, and churn out workboats for exploring, but we lose out on the commerce as well.

I tried the test game again and founded NW. Tech went Mining->BW->Pottery->Writing->Alphabet. Founded a 3rd city near the copper, captured a barb city for my 4th. Built a couple of warriors, barracks, then timed the worker to appear when I finished BW.

I attacked the Incas with Axemen to keep my tech pace reasonable. I didn't pop a border in Osaka till I got Writing and whipped a library. I got the palace in Osaka in around 250 BC and stopped playing after taking 5 Incan cities including the capitol in 85 BC.

Obviously, it helped to know the map beforehand. Since early war is predicated on having copper/iron, I think we should go straight for BW and hope to be able to get a source.

As mboza pointed out, there is land(or at least shallow waters) just north of Kyoto, I think the first(or second) player should consider sending the first work boat north-east to explore. The extra food a fishing boat would grant Kyoto will be of limited use untill we get slavery, anyway.
Finding another civ, or even better our long lost brother, would be a great advantage in terms of trade routes, cheaper tech cost etc. If it's a dead end it can always return to fishing duty.
As for our second city, the settler can, in theory, move 11 spaces due west and settle in the 6 turns before the animals appear. If this can indeed be done, the city upkeep would drop to 4 gold/turn.

TDK

How do we get this one rollin'. Do we make an order of play according to our respective timezones? My timezone is GMT+1.

TDK

I dont' think that we should use the first WB as a water scout. Each pop in Kyoto can give us 2 commerce/turn, which is probably better than the tech discount we may get. Maybe the 2nd, but I'd lean toward the third.

Also, I'm not sure how water-based trade routes work anymore. According to the game, Sailing is supposed to be the tech that unlocks them. But you also have to have open borders to the civ too right? It's must be like currency in that only 1 civ has to have Sailing, cause my last game I had trading routes to Persia before I got sailing.

Anyway, I'm at GMT+4.

FYI - I will be out of town the next couple of days.

Personally I still think settling early is better. I wouldn't spend more than a turn looking around, something like send the warrior East and if nothing good send the Settler SW then NW onto the forest. If nothing new pops up really good you can go NE to found back in the spot that looks best from what we currently see. We need as much time as possible to get warriors for defense, a worker, and a settler built to claim a war resource. I think chopping/whipping a library is the best way to get culture going also instead of an obelisk. I still find Pottery, Mining, BW, Writing as the best first techs. After that we will need to decide where we want to go.

First workboat for Kyoto should go on the fish, second could explore but I would probably wait until the 3rd one. Don't forget to build a warrior there for happiness.

And lastly remember our goal of fast domination.

I wouldn't spend more than a turn looking around, something like send the warrior East and if nothing good send the Settler SW then NW onto the forest. If nothing new pops up really good you can go NE to found back in the spot that looks best from what we currently see.

After playing the test game, I don't have a problem with settling NW. I thought the city would suck more than it did. I think Harok's idea is good. Explore minimally, settle on 2nd turn if there's nothing spectacular.

If we do go Pottery, Mining, BW, Writing (in that order), should we start a worker immediately in the 2nd city, so as to take advantage of Pottery at the earliest possible time? Or should we pump out a warrior to make sure that we have early protection?

The way is see it is an early worker will give us the 1 FP cottage quickest and be able to road to help defense, but that's all till BW. Early warriors will give us the security/fogbusting of multiple warriors and possibly an early promotion from animals, before the real barbs show up.

I don't think we have any chance at any early wonders. We should put those shields into a settler for a 3rd city (hopefully w/ copper) and some axeman to take a 4th city and then build the palace in one of the 3 on the mainland.

I think it would be a waste to research pottery for the benefit of only one FP cottage, and in doing so delaying the chopping/whipping that we will depend on in the early game.
Relying on cottages is also a little risky vis-a-vis the barbarian situation.

I still feel a better approach would be to research BW and move the settler toward the capital for a number of turns. We will have BW much earlier this way, and the 2nd city can make up for the lost production by ealier chopping.
I think having the 2nd city on a hill will be something to look for too.

Can we all agree on the first turn move Harok suggested? Maybe we should make that move, and continue the discussion thereafter(I mean, if two gold fields pop up in the hills, this discussion is a little superfluous).

About the work boats, I see your points, the first one should definitely be a fishing boat.

TDK

Another thing about scouting workboats is that they can't enter other civ's territory until you get open borders with them. So exploring with them early is bound to hit a wall. Once you get open borders, though you can move them into other civ's cities and explore their land as well.

I think it would be a waste to research pottery for the benefit of only one FP cottage

I would agree that researching pottery first strictly for the FP cottage is a waste. But we're gonna want a worker out by the time we get BW to chop anyway. Also we'll likely need to connect copper by road. And by building some roads early, we'll be able to move warriors around a little quicker. Plus we can road some forests to chop 1 turn quicker than usual. By the time we get BW, that FP cottage should be close to a village.

move the settler toward the capital
We're not really sure what is in that direction. It may be water or may be another civ. We could end up with a worse start than we have now and be some turns behind. I don't think the risk is worth the 1-3 gold/turn savings.

As for founding on a hill, I think that's too defensive. Even with raging barbs, the way to control them is to be proactive. Don't fight a defensive war against them around your city, get out there and let them suicide on your fortified units. Plus if we found NW on the coast, we've cut the number of units we need to fogbust the immediate area of our city.

I think making Harok's move, then posting a screen shot for all to see, is a good idea.

I think this little variant is great. I wish they'd do somthing like this for the standard GOTM. Everyone has a different take on this situation we're in. It'd be quite a change from the standard start for regular games.

I am GMT+1 too.

I would build warriors first, both to let the population build up a little and to go scouting/fog busting. We have no idea how big the 2nd island is, or how many other civs might be on it.

Pottery would also be useful for a granary in Kyoto, but not until we have BW. An extra blip of happiness would also be nice otherwise we will still be growing faster than required for to whip 2 pop every 15 turns.

But I would love to see what is on the other side of the hills, and what is to the SW. The advantages of 1 NW are that you have the river, are on the coast, and have the fp, and then fish and rice. Lots of forests for health and chopping. But only one hill for production, so it is not an ideal site by any means. If we found a food resource and some hills SW so that we did not have to wait for a border expansion, it would be very appealing for a production centre to start a conquest from.

As for founding on a hill, I think that's too defensive. Even with raging barbs, the way to control them is to be proactive. Don't fight a defensive war against them around your city, get out there and let them suicide on your fortified units. Plus if we found NW on the coast, we've cut the number of units we need to fogbust the immediate area of our city.
I agree. But if we do move away into a hilly area, I cannot think of anything that we lose by settling on a hill apart from the long term ability to mine it when we are already working all the other mined hills around.

This is a slight tangent, but for some reason I have a long held distrust of settling on hills in any version of civ (apart from plains hills now) and I have had no idea why :confused:. I now remember that it predates the automatic 2 food, 1 hammer, 1 commerce for a city square.

It seems there is general agreement on the turn1 move so I will go ahead and do that, then we can continue the discussion.

Looking at the progress chart(power), it seems 1 team settled immediately and 3 teams moved the settler. Not sure I'm interpreting that correctly, though?

TDK

I moved the warrior, it wasn't exactly two gold mines, but close.:crazyeye:


http://img424.imageshack.us/img424/769/sgotm4000bcbv8.png

What now? From the top of my head; We go for the gems and mining ASAP.

TDK

Wheew! That just made the game a whole lot more predictable. I vote for mining too.

At this point, I think we should settle N of the sheep, so we should move the settler NE.

Then next turn, move warrior SE to the other hill to get a view of what else is around the gems. If nothing good, then move settler N of the sheep and settle the turn afterwards.

But should we go for the worker immediately or warriors?

GMT+1

Well worth going for the gems, we effectively save money not settling for a couple of turns anyway.

I would assume settler is going for grassland on coast and move NW with warrior, we want to now settle soon and get gems mined and worked. Next turn move warrior SE and settler NW again.

Mining-BW for techs (nned some more thought beyond this). Worker build first.

If you could please post back again before you settle.

The settler could move to the same hill as the warrior, next turn the warrior could move south-east and the settler to the gem. In turn 3 the settler could then either settle north of the river or two spaces east of the warriors current position. North of the river would bring us a lot of forest close to the city, while the southern site would get us more hills in the long term.

TDK

The settler could move to the same hill as the warrior, next turn the warrior could move south-east and the settler to the gem. In turn 3 the settler could then either settle north of the river or two spaces east of the warriors current position.

Good plan, settling will hinge on what we discover next turn.

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/4736/sgotm3970so8.png

Power! Even an oasis for extra trade while we build a worker! I guess we can agree on the plains between the gems.

TDK

p.s.: I will be away for an hour or such.

We won't be able to use the oasis till after we pop a border, but still that's an unreal start.

In between the gems looks great to me.

We may be better on the coast and a 2nd city gets gems, floodplains etc.. If we place on plains we may restrict the long-term number of cities.

Would be nice to see a bit more to the east (2 moves of warrior) before final decision.

Ideally our next settler should claim copper for us. So if we settle on the coast and find that we need to settle a crappy city to get the copper, that leaves us waiting for our 4th city to get the 2nd gems and gold.

It looks like there's plenty of room so far. We could finish this turn by moving the settler E to the gems, cause it can't settle this turn anyway. Then next turn start with the warrior going SE to uncover some more land south of us. Then we could still settle N of the sheep or in between the gems on that turn.

Good point, with the barbs as well we cant wait on copper too long. I'm okay with the plains once we see a bit more east and suggest a CS Slingshot, beauracracy would really kick ass with this capitol.

I tried some test runs on how quickly we can get the Oracle in Kyoto.

My best time was 1480 BC. I hadn't finished CoL by then, but I hadn't founded a 2nd city with 2 gem mines either!

Build order went WB->WB->warrior->oracle.

The quickest strategy was to have Kyoto move its pop to be a citizen to get the first WB out quickest. When it is done, move the citizen to the fish. Grow to 2, use a citizen again to speed the second WB. I grew to 3 and finished 2nd WB in the same turn.

Then I worked all tiles, no citizens while building the warrior. Grew to 4, finished warrior, started Oracle, grew to 5. Then I grew till I had 1 turn left to grow to 6. Added 3 citizens, waited till I got close to 159 (225-66) shields. Grew the turn that I would pass 159 shields, whipped 3 pop the next turn and got the Oracle in 1420.

If our second city can get help us through Mining->Myst->Meditation->BW->Writing->CoL, then we can pull this off for sure.

I'm gonna try to do it quicker by whipping and using the whip overflow on the oracle.

I got it done in 1600 BC twice by using the overflow from whipping our warrior, but I think the holdup will be more that we need to get to CoL before we finish it.

Looks like a godd start guys

I agree with putting first city near gems. We have our spot. I like between the gems also because it closes the NW off to barbs.

Also agree with mining-BW. After that, We will see later once we know where bronze is.

I would get another warrior out (2nd city) and look for a worker steal and that copper.

Sorry I have not been to into the game yet. I am moving right now and will have more time in 1-2 weeks. I am western US (GMT +8?) so put me near the end of the line up.

keep up the good work.

Looking good so far.

Couple of questions
1. Settle on the plains hill? you get to work the oasis while building the worker as the first build (instead of sheep), and +1 hammer for the hill. 90 hammers for the worker is 18 turns instead of 23. Then keep working the oasis while mining the gems (what 6 or 8 turns, one extra food each?), and obviously go straight for an obelisk after the worker. Obelisk takes 16? turns then 15 turns for the culture expansion, then 6/8 turns for the second gems mine, so it takes almost 40 turns to get the second mine built. You can mine the gold while waiting for the culture. Need 36 food, 6x3+9x2 (or 8x3+6x2 ?) = 14 or 15 turns to grow. So you gain 5 turns on the first mine, but lose 25 turns on the second? (Compensated for by working the gold?) And you need to build the obelisk straight after the worker. Suspect it is too soon to be whipped, and we cannot grow the pop fast enough anyway (11 turns to grow vs 16 turns to build?).

Unfortunately I cannot find how long it will take to mine the gems and the gold, and the guesses are probably based on normal speed. Doh.

Still, I reckon that I am right in saying you get the worker out 5 turns faster (faster still if building warrior then worker, but I would just build the worker), but it probably takes far too long to get the second gems mine. We also lose the river bonuses, but gain the fp that we started on. And we probably gain a desert in the south. Anything else that I have missed? If someone can find me the correct times to mine before we continue, then I can do it properly, but I do not think that the long term extra hammer from the hill is worthwhile. Just did not want to ignore the short term hammer.

2) Move the warrior S instead of SE? Moving SE you will see the 3 squares to the south, but will you see them anyway by staying on the hill? You might see a hill that is 3E of the warrior currently, but that all looks flat. Unless of course you go SE, SE to the desert hill that is just visible. But I would settle between the gems before you get there.

3) Why on earth is a blue circle on that forest? The only thing I can think of is if the inside of the fat cross is more heavily weighted than the outside, which is interesting to know, if not immediately useful.

4) I would agree with building for all the resources rather than trying to plan 2 cities. I will probably be proved wrong. I would be tempted to put a city 1N of the settler, and 2S (by the plains hill logic above, do this first?), but I think they might be too close, especially if we can get to CS, bureaucracy, and get the palace build with all those bonus squares being worked. It will take 7 pop or so, but that is within reach.

5) Not sure if I can tell anything from the power chart, because it seems to only plot power each save, rather than each turn, so the different lines partly correspond to different lengths lengths of first turn. Of course, you might be able to tell that to get to certain power they needed to have settled, grown a pop and built a warrior or something, but that is beyond me.

I can tell you that I played one half turn more and found nothing usefull in terms of terrain. Isabella dropped in to say hi from the north-east.

A bit more discussion on the following topics would be usefull:
-CS slingshot and how we protect against the barbs at the same time. (If copper shows up we know how)

-Using citizen specialist in Kyoto for first workboat, is it worth it? I think it sounds pretty good, even with the initial loss in commerce.

-We should decide a final position for our 2nd city, supermetropolis or defensive stronghold on the hill, I would go for the supermetro.

TDK

With Isabella close by and a possible 2nd spanish settler around(Isabella is at 46 points, thats why I think she might have a second settler), I think we should settle the plains between the gems. If we settle the hill we risk Isabella building just north of the river, stealing our sheep, rice & gem.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/8152/sgotm3940xq3.png

TDK

She can't have a second settler can she? It's just monarch, I thought they didn't get 2nd settlers till deity. Unless they gave her that special for this game.

Mines take 6 turns at epic, 8 turns (I think) if you're building on a desert or tundra.

I hadn't thought about settling on the hill. I didn't realize it was on fresh water, so we'd still get the +2 health. But if we found there, then we probably can't found a city NW of the original start to get the fish.

But the city on the hill would out perform the city on the plain in growth, production and commerce up to size 3 if MM well. But unless we built an obelisk early (I guessed after worker->warrior->warrior), it will fall behind the city on the plain in growth. The size 3 cities would be getting 7F, 6H, 15C (hill) or 8F, 4H, 14C (plains).

I would vote for the hill city, but only if we research mining->myst->BW, so we can build the early obelisk after 2 warriors. The hill city of size 2 can alternate between the oasis and the gold mine (2 oasis, 1 gold) to get an average of 6F, 4H, 10.67C.

The plains city isn't bad by any stretch, it just takes a while to get to size 3 without the oasis.

More on Izzy's score: she probably already has a worker and a couple of archers. After all, we have 1 city and 1 settler and are only at 40.

Good analysis, I will go ahead and settle on the hill. The extra food, commerce and production is a compelling argument, we will save 5 turns on the worker and get a gem mine 5 turns ealier for even more nice commerce.
The extra defense bonus is also a nice bonus for this kind of map.

TDK

-Using citizen specialist in Kyoto for first workboat, is it worth it? I think it sounds pretty good, even with the initial loss in commerce.


Every two turns spent with a worker brings the workboat completion 1 turn forward. You miss 4 food, 4 commerce over those two turns, but gain 3 food for evey turn you bring it forward. If we were not on the plains hill, you would be trading 2 commerce now for one food later by using the worker, which might be worth it. As we are on the plains hill, I do not see the point just yet, though it will be worth coming back to when we are not building workboats.

Yeah, growing immediately for the commerce and food is better than running any citizens.

Ok, if we build on the plains hill, the question is then do we research mysticism straight after mining? I think we have to, unless we plan on building so many warriors that we can sensibly get BW then Myst in time to start the obelisk after the warriors.

An advantage of getting BW before myst is that we can then whip the obelisk, saving 12-15 turns of building. So if BW is less then 15 turns or even a little more, it would be worthwhile. Costs us a pop in the second city, but we can then whip Kyoto earlier, and start planning a copper city.

If we are founding on the plains hill, I think it's imperative to get myst before BW. We need to get the obelisk done early and pop a border sooner, so that we can get that 2nd gem mine going and keep growing at more than 1F/turn. If we don't pop the border early, then we're looking at a something like 38 turns between size 3 and 4.

I think pop is more useful in the 2nd city for the early game, cause we need all the commerce we can get and its squares will be huge for commerce. If we did whip the obelisk, it would take us 17 turns to grow back to size 2 (if we used the gem mine) or 11-12 to grow back (if we used the oasis). The obelisk should take something like 11-12 turns to build if we keep micromanaging Osaka.

I especially think we should save population up so that we can whip the library after we get writing. I'm not sure if we'd be able to do a 3 person whip, but at least a 2 person whip.

I uploaded the save. City turned out to cost 8 gold, not 7. We reseached Mining and will have a worker next turn.
First work boat is in operation and the second one is being produced. Borders expanded, interesting new land:
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7606/sgotm3400in5.png

Warrior explored in a circle around our city and headed north-east to locate the spaniards. Interestingly, they weren't to be found there. I have seen at least 3 different spanish scouts. I had the chance to take one hut just south of our city but I didn't want to take the chance. No religions founded yet.

http://img60.imageshack.us/img60/9886/sgotm34001ar9.png

The last couple of turns I put science on 0% to allow us to discuss which tech to pursue before the next player takes over.

TDK

Cool. Let's give everyone some time to comment and suggest what we do from here.

The land north of Kyoto looks interesting. If there is fish around that stone hill then it would make a interesting city site, as would the grassland by the cow. But it will be very far from our moved capital. I wonder just how artificial this map will turn out to be.

I think it has to be mysticism first. 7 turns to mine the first gems, and then the tech pace should pick up somewhat. Mysticism will be cheaper because Isabella has it. So we can get a warrior out of Osaka, possibly just in time to start the obelisk with a bit of MM? And the obelisk should complete before BW, so I would go back to building warrior(s) for finding the copper and fog busting, then a settler?

As for Kyoto, do we want to send the second workboat north around those islands, or just improve the other fish and wait for the third? It has 5 happiness and 3 health, so 2 improved fish will support 3 workers, or we can work the seas and build up to a 3 pop whip in plenty of time for writing, possibly whipping workboats etc along the way. I think I would go for the fish, rather than gamble on chaining our way round to another civ qite quickly.

More general question, but what are the views on chopping some/all of those forests. Do we aim to chop a settler, axemen, the oracle, wait til maths, or keep them for a rainy day?

I agree that Mysticism should be next, we will really harness the power of the city when we can use the 2nd gem mine and the 2nd oasis.

I also agree with at least one warrior now, then the obelisk, then back to a couple warriors and a barracks.

I say 2nd WB on fish, explore with a 3rd. We can whip a warrior from scratch for 1 pop. If we can get by without a warrior until we get BW, that would be best, so that we can whip the warrior and put the overflow into our next build.

Since most of us found that we eventually ran out of things to build in Kyoto, I thought that would be the best place to build the Oracle, if we are going for the CS slingshot. If we are going to go for that, we should decide soon so that we know what techs to go in the future. If we use a 3 person whip, we only need to get 159 shields in Kyoto to be able to finish the Oracle.

If we are going for CS slingshot, we may want to wait until we get (or are close to) CoL before we settle a 3rd city cause that will subtract at least 8 beakers/turn from our tech pace.

As for chopping, it would be nice to burn a couple for a quicker settler, but we should save some to use to chop the palace too.

Good analysis on building the Oracle grangerm. I think this would be a sensible use of Kyoto unless the northern land is a must settle once we see more. CS is also in the tech path for samurai and we will want COL early as well so it fits nicely.

I would use 3rd workboat for explore, we are not in that much of a hurry to see the land or meet other civs compared with creating a very useful tile.

I would save whatever we need to chop the palace asap once we change to beauracracy.

Just to clarify, both of the new land masses to the north of the capital are islands; in the actual game, as opposed to the screenshot above, the waves can be made out on the far side.

I am all for Mysticism for now. It's interesting that no religion was founded yet, especially as we know the spanish are in the game(I thought Isabella always tried for a religion?!?). A remote possibility is grabbing a religion after mysticism, we need to go that way sooner or later anyway for the CS slingshot. I know it's a long shot, but it might be worth watching out for. Anyone know how the holy city is assigned, is it largest unreligious city in the empire or..?
2nd work boat should be a fishing boat.

TDK

If we are going for the CS slingshot, we'll almost certainly be the first to CoL, so we'll get religion there. It seems to me that the holy city normally goes to the 2nd city, but I have no evidence.

Now that we see those two islands, it opens up the possibility of settling them. But we would need Sailing and Kyoto to build a galley and a couple of settlers, which would not fit in our CS slingshot plan. Also, if we are going to settle those islands, does it really make sense to move the palace to Osaka?

As I see it, the next important event becomes finding where copper is. What if we don't find any copper close to Osaka? We can't expect ot hold off raging barbs with warriors alone all the way through CoL. Should we abandon the CS slingshot plan? Instead, we could research Iron Working (hoping for Iron) and Pottery and still build the Oracle to get Metal Casting (which is also a pre-req for Samurai, though not as expensive as CS).

Metal Casting would unlock the Colossus, which would work almost like Beauracracy would for Kyoto and any other island cities around it (essentially +50% commerce). Though to be fair, it would cost 180 (?) for the Forge and 375 (?) for the Colossus. Another plus side of getting the Forge would be that it would allow us to use the pop-rush bug and use 1 engineer specialist in place of two citizens.

If we are still planning on building the Oracle in Kyoto, it's likely that we won't have Priesthood by the time we are done with our warrior and 3rd WB. So if we build something else, we should time it so that it finishes soon after we get priesthood, so we can whip it the rest of the way and hopefully carryover most of the 44 whip hammers to the Oracle. The build would have to be at least 44 hammers to carry over 44 hammers.

That's a really good alternative, grangerm. The whole copper issue is crucial, we can't really decide on the merit of CS slingshot before we know if there is copper, and hence how to defend against the barbarians. Is it in the city radius? Just outside? Or not at all? That's why I would like to make a case for BW before mysticism:
I looked at the game and it seems we can discover BW in 16-20 turns if we switch to the gem mine as soon as it is completed.
After BW, with the gold mine up and running, Myst should take no more than 6 turns. Osaka will barely grow to 3 in this time.
Another advantage of waiting is that Isabella might still claim one of the early religions(I stille don't quite understand why no religion was founded, maybe she is going for Hinduism, takes longer), and with the close proximity of our start locations, there is a chance we will get a religion for free, allowing us to bypass Myst and obelisk.

TDK

OK, so if we research BW first, there are 3 outcomes as far as I am concerned:
1) We have copper in our Osaka's fat cross.
2) We have copper close enough to settle a second city to claim it.
3) We have no copper or no copper close enough to legitimately claim it.

If 1) or 2), we can continue towards the CS slingshot (building a settler along the way for case 2).

If 3), what do we do? Do we decide that a border pop is not that important anymore and that we need to know where iron is NOW, so we start on IW immediately? Or do we go for mysticism to get the border pop, then IW?

Assume that we have no copper and will need to research IW. Our tech paths from here could be:
3a) BW->IW
3b) BW->myst->IW
3c) myst->BW->IW

3a) would take too long and stagnate Osaka in my opinion.

3b) would probably mean we whip the obelisk immediately after getting myst, but we're still waiting 15 turns for the border pop, stuck at size 3, growing at 1F/turn.

3c) will give us a bigger city sooner with 2 gems, gold and 2 oasis getting worked, we can make up for the lost commerce researching myst.

I hadn't thought about religion spreading to Osaka, but doesn't it spread along roads, rivers and trading routes? If we aren't connected to Isabella, is it reasonable to hope that we get religion? Do we have to have open borders for it to spread passively?

My point on case 3) is that if we're just going to end up researching mysticism after BW, no matter if we have copper or not, then we should research mysticism first, so that we can get the obelisk out and the culture counting.

We probably won't be using any of the active benefits of BW (whipping or chopping) until after we researched mysticism. So why not research myst first, to use it's active benefits, if the passive benefits of BW aren't going to change anything we do in the short term.

I'm fine with Mysticism. I guess it can be done either way, depending on if you would use the gold mine or the oasis on size 2.

I compiled our time zone info:

TDK +1(played)
Mboza +1(Mboza or Strobe is up)
Strobe +1
Grangerm +4
Blastoidstalker +8
Harok (Away for a couple of days)
DocTK(Didn't check in)

TDK

I think we should use a combo at size 2, something like 2 turns oasis, 1 turn gold mine.

I compiled our time zone info:

TDK +1(played)
Mboza +1(Mboza or Strobe is up)
Strobe +1
TDK

I doubt I will be playing tonight, so if Strobe wants this turn he can post a got it and run with it. Otherwise I will take it tomorrow night. Though if Strobe does not want to play next, and posts soon, I could play tonight.

I would rather play friday/saturday

I can play right now, so I'm taking it. I hope that's not a problem for anyone.

I am back in town....looks like we are off to a strong start, good work.:goodjob:

We need to decide if we are going to try for a CS slingshot. I think it is possible but will require careful planning, every beaker and hammer will count and even then will require some luck. If not we could try to get Oracle for something else like MC or CoL which still have good benefits although not as much as CS.

As for research I would do BW first then Myst. If we have copper the game gets 100% easier, if not at least we are prepared. Plus going BW first will allow us to chop an obelisk instead of build it. After BW and Myst we need to regroup and see what we want to do. During this time I would use the highest beaker producing tiles at just about all times, every beaker counts.

After Osaka finishes the worker it needs to build a couple of warriors for fog busting/barbarian defense. After that an obelisk followed by more defenders axes if we have copper or warriors if we don't should keep us safe for quite awhile as long as we are being careful sticking to tiles with defensive bonuses. We should expect to see LOTS of barbs.

In Kyoto we need a warrior for happiness after the workboat. Next we could do another workboat for looking around or we could start Stonehendge with no intention of finishing but just collecting money for when someone else finishes it. This could really help keep our research up when we settle that 3rd city. We can switch off Stonehedge once Oracle is available, with a turn in between to whip whatever will get us the most carry over hammers.

FYI I am in Central time zone GMT -6.

3400 BC - Swapped tech to Mysticism

3370 Bc - Osaka: worker->warrior, worker starts gem mine
IBT: Buddhism founded

3340 BC - Kyoto grow3 to 2
IBT: Isabella converts to Buddhism

3310 BC - Nada

3280 BC - Nada

3250 BC - Nada

3220 BC - Gem mine done, swap Osaka from oasis to gems

3190 BC - Moved worker to gold.

3160 BC - Start gold mine.
IBT: warrior defeats Lion

3130 BC - Kyoto grows to 3. Warrior starts healing.

3100 BC - Mysticism complete, start BW. Osaka: warrior->obelisk.

3070 BC - 1st warrior done healing.

3040 BC - Nada
IBT: 2nd warrior defeats wolf. Saw lion and panther N of Osaka.

3010 BC - 2nd warrior back inside borders to heal. Gold mine done.

2980 BC - worker roads gold.

2950 BC - Osaka grows to 2, uses oasis.

2920 BC - Gold road done, start gem road. 2nd warrior back out N.
IBT: panther beats warrior with 9% chance.

Turn 36, 2920 BC: Barbarian's Panther (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (3.10)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Combat Odds: 9.0%
Turn 36, 2920 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: (River Attack: +25%)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 24 (76/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (84/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 24 (52/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 24 (28/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (68/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (52/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (36/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (20/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 24 (4/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (4/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (0/100HP)
Turn 36, 2920 BC: Barbarian's Panther has defeated Team One's Warrior!


2890 BC - swapped obelisk for warrior now that our 2nd got ate for dinner.
swapped oasis for gold for a quicker warrior.
Kyoto to size 4
IBT: Hinduism founded

2860 BC - Kyoto: WB->WB, use WB on fish. BW will finish before Kyoto tries to get to size 5, so swap to slavery and

whip the warrior when we finish BW. Overflow will help 3rd WB finish. 1st warrior sees a wolf, not taking any

chances, fortifies on the hill.
IBT: warrior wins, ready for promotion, I left him unpromoted.

2830 BC - gem road done, warrior heals.

2800 BC - worker roading toward 2nd gems, also so we can get into the N forest in 1 turn from Osaka.


Still no sign of Isabella, she must be SE of Osaka.
Replacement warrior will be done next turn in Osaka.
Need to make Osaka work the oasis some to grow. Obelisk has ~20 shields in it so far.
Don't forget to make sure Kyoto doesn't become unhappy.
BW will be done in 3 turns.

State of the empire:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/mainland-2800BC00011.JPG

Lion and panther are near the green dot. Our warrior is at the red dot.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Kyoto-_2800BC0000.JPG

Ok, good work. Could Mboza or Strobe please play the next 3 turns and post a screenshot after BW. Then we can discuss what to do.

TDK

Strobe prefered Friday/Saturday, so he can take this, and I will take it after.

Losing a 90+% fight hurts but at the beginning of the game it is magnified.

Red dot needs to head back to Osaka or else we may get overrun by barbs (which are bound to show up soon) if we don't have copper. We should probably chop a forest to finish obelisk and get more defense built once BW completes.

mboza, I am at work until 7pm tonight so if you are free please go ahead with your turn.

Good turnset. Barbs will be here within 10 turns so I agree we need to get our warrior back.

I also think we should chop the obelisk as we still have to wait for the border pop afterwards.

If the worker goes vacant, please build a road to the river as well.

TDK

Good points. If we chop a forest, we'll get the rest of the obelisk, a warrior and probably halfway to another warrior. Is the forest regrow chance affected by the number of forests on adjacent squares? If so, the forest E of Osaka has 3 adjacent, the most of our forests.

If the worker goes vacant, please build a road to the river as well.
The warrior is building a road to the N river already, I guess you mean the S river.

Actually, I meant the north river, didn't realise it was already being done.

TDK

I would leave the forest to the East as it makes a great spot for barbs to suicide themselves since they will often be crossing the river to a forested fortified defender. The forested hill to the south also makes a great spot to have a defender so I would chop a forest from the west.

And if the worker gets bored a road to these spots would allow defenders to go from and to the city in 1 turn which could help when the barbs show up in waves from 1 direction.

I'll take the next slot then.

Okay I have researched to bronze and it is not quite in our Fat Cross.

1. I have started on warrior in Kyoto rather than WB for happiness. We will reach limit though before warriror built. So we need to either:-
a) Create citizens and time growth with warrior build. If we do this we waste lots of food and commerce.
b) Whip a barracks (only building that will take 2 pop) then build warrior.
c) let the city go unhappy for 5-6 turns.

2. Barbs are the next major issue. I have marked possible locations for defence. I need feedback on which positions we want to use and how many warriors we want to build.

3. Although obelisk is nearly built I think one chop towards warriors is going to be needed, I want the warriors in place and fortified for several turns before barbs. If we get attacked by barb warriors we are okay but if we unluckily get 2-3 barb archers in close succession we will be in trouble.

4. I have not bothered with a dot map for 3rd city yet as we have plenty of time to discuss that.

5. Tech order. We should be able to claim the bronze so I would leave IW for now. I would use Pottery-Writing-Poly-Priesthood then decide on CS slinghot or metalcasting from Oracle.

My idea with Kyoto was to whip the warrior once we got BW. That would take us back to size 3, we could grow back to size 4 and apply the overflow to the WB. But we would still have to use citizens or turn on avoid growth to not grow to 5 unhappy. Though if we aren't planning on using any citizens there in the short term, it wouldn't matter if we did go unhappy, we'd just collect less food per turn.

Shouldn't whipping the barracks from scratch give us 44*4 shields toward it? Since it's a two pop whip, it should give us 88 base, but since we are aggresive, it should double that. So we should be able to carry 44-45 over right? That's something to save for hurrying the Oracle, I think.

Oops, I meant the forest to the W is the prime candidate for chopping, not the E. If the worker moves to chop that ASAP, that should finish when the obelisk does and get us 2 warriors. It will waste any shields we produce those turns though, so we should make sure to work the oasis then.

I like the defensive positions, especially the forested hill 4S 1W of Osaka. I have a question, will the square 3S 2E of Osaka still be under FOW even if we have the two southern sentries until we get the border pop?

If we chop the forest, that'll give us 4 total warriors in around 7 turns. We need 5 to cover the positions, plus 1 backup that hangs near Osaka just in case. I'd say we want 6 total. A chop should get us 88 toward a barracks too.

As for tech, if we are doing the CS slingshot, I think we should skip Pottery cause it's already going to take long enough to research CoL. Though it would be nice to build a granary in Osaka to grow quicker, I'm not sure that we have the spare hammers right now.

If we're going for MC, we need Pottery, but we can get Oracle much earlier without having to research writing or CoL. So should we go for Poly->Priesthood->Pottery, so that we can get some shields into the Oracle and make sure that no one gets the Oracle before us?

On our current situation: I say whip warrior in capital and send the next work boat north-east. I agree with Grangerms tech lineup(Poly, Priesthood, Pottery), we risk losing the race for the Oracle if we go Writing first.
(EDIT: Note: The numbers below are not entirely correct, Pottery can be skipped as Grangerm pointed out above, but I still think CS slingshot is way too risky)
For CS slingshot we need about 1525 research beakers. I think we can realistically average 25 a turn. That makes 61 turns. We are now at turn 43, so we would be there at about turn 104, which is after 1000BC. I have seen the AI finish oracle as early as 1600BC on this difficulty.
If we build more cities I don't think we could even average 25(Osaka costs 10 gold/turn as it is), so the price for even going for CS slingshot is not building more cities, which is dangerous vis-a-vis the barbarian situation. Even if we did manage to pull it off, we would end up with bureaucracy in our beautifull but crappy capital because we can't move the capital before we have 4 cities. As for religion, if we get Isabellas she will like us very much and can be an ally and trading partner, if we found our own she might attack us before we are ready.
If we manage to build the oracle, I think grangerm's idea of picking Metal Casting is a good one, we already have 2 of the happiness resources for the forge. Civil Service could be gotten later with a prophet(as long as we don't open up Organized Religion by researching Masonry).

TDK

I'm fine with metalcasting and cs slingshot is let down by poor capitol which we most likely will move to osaka.

So....

Tech: Poly-Priesthood.
Build Osaka: chop 1 forest for warriors. Build a total of 6 placing in defensive positions.
Build Kyoto: Whip warrior. Manage growth to build WB for exploration.

will the square 3S 2E of Osaka still be under FOW even if we have the two southern sentries until we get the border pop?


I don't think so, but I will post back this afternoon after another 5-6 turns and we can assess build order for Osaka once we have defense in place.

Sounds good to me.

Civil Service could be gotten later with a prophet

Good point. If we build the Forge in Kyoto and eventually assign a eng. specialist, we can get 5 GPP/turn, with something like a 70/30 prophet/engineer chance. If we get the prophet, great. If we get an engineer, well, when was an engineer ever a bad thing? We could use it on the Colossus or maybe we could even use it towards Machinery (the other Sam pre-req).

I would just let Kyoto go unhappy for a few turns. No point in losing 2f 2c for each worker to save 2f 2c by bringing the warrior forward a turn, especially when you will need two workers. And whipping a barracks is entirely unnecessary at the moment. Will whipping the barracks actually cost 2 pop, and will it all overflow, or did the last patch alter that?

Whipping the warrior will achieve little in happiness terms, as we get +1 unhappiness for whipping replacing the +1 unhappiness for not being defended. We also lose the 2f2c/turn from the whipped citizen, until we reach the happiness limit again. So as there are less than 15 turns needed to build the warrior, the only advantage in whipping is for the production overflow. And then we should probably wait until we are 1 turn into building the workboat, as that can then be finished with one pop?

Warrior whipped in kyoto, 5 turns until growth again.

SE warriror wins a fight with lion (in open ground after chasing me for miles !).

2560BC - That barbarian sure does look mad !
I finished the chop of west forest ensuring same turn as obelisk and oasis worked. This gave us 34 hammer overflow. Enough to complete 1.5 warriors.

The barb is 2 turns from osaka which currently has no defense :eek:

2530BC - Barb is 1 turn away and we get our 1st warrior. I move back to work gold mine for extra hammer to get more warriors.
Not sure there is much I can do defense wise ?, I will have to stay in City (+25% defense for warriors) so fingers crossed this barb does not like pillaging.

The tile 3S2E is still FOW but I don't think it is worth moving the SE warrior which is now in defense across a river.

We will struggle whatever we do in Kyoto with so much food. Whipping a barracks is 2 pop and we will get overflow. I will leave the tiles so we keep commerce and go unhappy for now.

I tested whipping the barracks from scratch to see how much overflow we'd get. I got 23 overflow.

I got 45 overflow from whipping a WB from scratch. We should use that to help build the Oracle quickly. We could even use it a couple of times, if we can handle the unhappiness.

mboza, I think you are right, it doesn't matter if we grow to unhappiness in Kyoto as long as it's just temporary unhappiness. Once it's gone, we already grown and collected at least some food, which is better than using avoid growth.

If we are going to be unhappy for very long (likely) and with our growth so quick I would have thought whipping the barracks is better if we can get so much overflow from WB for use with Oracle ?

Shouldn't whipping the barracks from scratch give us 44*4 shields toward it? Since it's a two pop whip, it should give us 88 base, but since we are aggresive, it should double that. So we should be able to carry 44-45 over right? That's something to save for hurrying the Oracle, I think.


No such luck. In a quick go of our test game, I let Kyoto build the barracks for 1 turn (2 x 2 hammers), and whipped. cost 1 pop, 3 hammers overflow. Whipping it from scratch cost two pop, went to 132/90 hammers, and I got 23 overflow into a obelisk. So the second pop only gave 22 hammers. The additional unhappiness costs us 15 turns of a citizens production too. Still a 22 hammers start on the oracle, and if we whip 3 pop at 159 hammers, we only need to put 137 in ourselves. Only problem is that growing the 2 pop while using workers will be awkward to time. We need 35 turns with 2 workers, or 28 with 3 workers.

edit: I see I should have hit refresh before posting, wonder why whipping workboats is so much more effective?

I ran a little test. I started with a 5 pop, max food Kyoto with no previous whipping penalty. I whipped a WB immediately and used the carry over for the Oracle. I grew back to 4, then I grew to 5 (even though I was unhappy).

I whipped another WB the turn that my previous whip penalty was going to wear off, carry over into Oracle. I grew back to 4 and 5 (unhappy, till whip penalty went away) and then I timed growing to 6 with reaching 159 shields in the oracle (i used a couple of citizens for a couple of turns).

Then I 3-pop-whipped the Oracle for a total of 36 turns. I didn't use any citizens until the very end so I kept generating all the commerce that I could.

Okay that was nerve racking.

2 more barbs attacked straight after the first with only a 2 warrior defense. Unfortunately this led to the Gems being pillaged :(, I had only 1 warrior within reach and couldn't risk attacking.

Growth has therefore been seriously set back.

Killed 7 barbs and we now have our total of 6 warriors (none lost). Nearly all in defensive positions.

Priesthood was finished on the last turn so I set osaka to a settler, but no hammers into it yet.

Kyoto is building a WB but now has Oracle available.

We are currently under siege by 3 barb warriors which shouldn't but too much trouble. One is already injured from killing isabella scout :lol: . Our warriror to the NE has lost both arms to a barb warriror with sharp teeth and requires urgent medical attention.

Worker has been moved to Gems and has 3 turns to put the mine back in place.

Tech changed to Pottery.

No barb archers have turned up so far, but with so much FOW we may still need more warriors unless that Bronze is online before archers do turn up.

Turn 40, 2800 BC: You have trained a Warrior in Osaka. Work has now begun on a Obelisk.

Turn 42, 2740 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!

Turn 43, 2710 BC: The revolution has begun!!!
Turn 43, 2710 BC: Team One adopts Slavery!
Turn 43, 2710 BC: The anarchy is over! Your government is re-established.

Turn 44, 2680 BC: You have trained a Warrior in Kyoto. Work has now begun on a Work Boat.

Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (2.80)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Combat Odds: 12.0%
Turn 47, 2590 BC: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 23 (77/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 16 (84/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 23 (54/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 23 (31/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 23 (8/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 23 (0/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 48, 2560 BC: You have constructed a Obelisk in Osaka. Work has now begun on a Warrior.

Turn 49, 2530 BC: You have trained a Warrior in Osaka. Work has now begun on a Warrior.

Turn 50, 2500 BC: You have trained a Warrior in Osaka. Work has now begun on a Warrior.
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (3.70)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Combat Odds: 1.2%
Turn 50, 2500 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: (City Defense: +25%)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: (City Barbarian Defense: +25%)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (73/100HP)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (46/100HP)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 14 (86/100HP)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (19/100HP)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 14 (72/100HP)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 14 (58/100HP)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (0/100HP)
Turn 50, 2500 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (3.20)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Combat Odds: 4.4%
Turn 52, 2440 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (55/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (40/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 53, 2410 BC: You have discovered Polytheism!

Turn 54, 2380 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (4.30)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Combat Odds: 0.6%
Turn 54, 2380 BC: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: (Fortify: +20%)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: (River Attack: +25%)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (72/100HP)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (44/100HP)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 13 (87/100HP)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (16/100HP)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 13 (74/100HP)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (0/100HP)
Turn 54, 2380 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 55, 2350 BC: Team One's Warrior (2.20) vs Barbarian's Warrior (2.00)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Combat Odds: 67.8%
Turn 55, 2350 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 19 (81/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 19 (62/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 19 (43/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (20/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (0/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (3.66)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Combat Odds: 2.7%
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (Fortify: +25%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (73/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 14 (80/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (46/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 14 (66/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (19/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (0/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (4.31)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Combat Odds: 1.4%
Turn 57, 2290 BC: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: (Fortify: +25%)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: (Combat: +25%)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: (River Attack: +25%)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 13 (75/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 13 (62/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 29 (71/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 13 (49/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 13 (36/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 29 (42/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 13 (23/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 29 (13/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 29 (0/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 58, 2260 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Team One's Warrior (3.40)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Combat Odds: 3.6%
Turn 58, 2260 BC: (Extra Combat: +20%)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (55/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (40/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (25/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Team One's Warrior is hit for 15 (10/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 58, 2260 BC: Team One's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!
Turn 58, 2260 BC: While defending, your Warrior has killed a Barbarian Warrior!

Turn 59, 2230 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Osaka!
Turn 59, 2230 BC: You have discovered Priesthood!

Turn 60, 2200 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Osaka!


Save is at
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Team_One_SG002_BC2200_01.Civ4SavedGame

Our warriror to the NE has lost both arms
Good job keeping everyone alive. Who needs arms anyway? You gave that warrior the power headbutt promotion right?

After the gem mine is done, I think we should move off the gold mine to the gem mine, so we can grow to 3. We'd need to switch off the settler for 2 turns. Then we can swap back to the settler. The worker can start the 2nd gem mine in a couple turns. When that's done while we're working on the settler, we can work the gold and 2 gems for some serious commerce.

Since we already have some hammers in Kyoto's WB, we can't get the max overflow for Oracle immediately. We can whip an oblelisk (even though it is useless) which would give us the max overflow. Then by the time we can whip again, the WB production should be gone and we can whip one of those. Then we'd grow for the 3 pop finishing whip.

Alternatively, we could whip the WB and get the ~10 overflow, then I think we'd have to whip at least 2 more, before we could finish it of with the 3-pop whip. I think we'd end up with the Oracle later, with more whipping penalties, but with more overflow for our next production and 3 more workboats.

What are we going for after Pottery? Writing for libraries? Or hunting/Agriculture->AH to improve the sheep?

I never play with raging barbs and I might have been better getting medic promotions rather than combat + shock. As they come in waves we may struggle to heal between them even with a promotion healing some. Works just about okay for barb warrirors but archers may be too strong. Something to bear in mind next round.

I agree getting the 2nd gem mine online is a priority.

I would say Writing so we can get a library quickly and then an academy for osaka, we can manage without AH for a bit longer as the sheep are on plains and we have 2 oasis tiles.

I would say writing after pottery. Grangerm, the work boat scheme sounds fantastic! We can just change to work boat once in a while and basically whip the wonder without the wonder penalty and produce work boats at the same time, great work! This is potentially huge!
Edit: just saw that you already tried the other direction.
That work boat north of Kyoto should sail the other way, toward our other city.

TDK

Thanks Strobe, got the save.

Losing the gems is not a disaster, as we working the oasis and the gold mine is still useful.

Kyoto has 5 happy pop working the seas, needs 1 food to grow. Is 9/45 towards a 4th WB. The oracle will take 36 turns from the above plan, but we cannot start it by whipping a WB from scratch at the moment. I imagine that whipping an obelisk would do just as well, though we then still cannot whip the WB in the middle. Anyone know a way to drop all production on something? I just did a quick test game, and reckon production stay constant for 10 turns, then starts dropping 1/turn. So it will take 19 turns to go back to zero. Plan would then be to whip obelisk now, wait 15 turns for happiness penalty, and another 4 for the WB to drop back to zero, and then whip a WB from scratch. CoL is 38 turns away, and should get closer as Osaka grows, so it fits in nicely with our time to build the oracle.

Interestingly, there is a coast square just out of view 3SE of Kyoto. Borders pop in 16 turns, and we should be able to send a WB over then. The islands north of Kyoto have 2 sea resources each, so they will make comparable sites to Kyoto, especially if we get the Colossus.

Osaka has 2 pop at the moment, 30/36 food with 1/turn. Switching from gold to gems when the mine complete in 3 turns will let it grow in 4 turns, so I think I will start by switching from the settler back to a warrior which will take 4 turns (have 4 overflow, so just completes if I switch from the mine). A settler is 25 turns to build at the moment, and will be 22 turns after we grow, and we get a warrior and a stack of commerce but the settler is delayed a turn. Will switch from oasis to second gem mine when ready.

The warrior to the west of Osaka can see a forested hill 2SW, so once Osaka's borders expand, I will move to that hill, as that should bust some more fog.

Plan A
MC slingshot:
continue researching pottery. If we then research poly and CoL before masonry, we can get CS from a great prophet 75 turns after completing the oracle. Switch to writing after pottery for libraries, or AH for sheep and revealing horses? I would prefer AH, but then we need to research Agriculture or hunting too. Pottery, writing should total 22? turns, so Osaka should be ready to build a library when it finishes the settler.

build oracle in Kyoto, aiming to whip WBs and put overflow into Oracle every 15 turns. Think that I need to whip the WB to start, which will cost 1 pop and overflow only 18 hammers, but we will then be able to whip a second for 44 overflow 15 turns later.

Build warrior for Osaka to grow, then start settler for copper city. I will probably switch back to warriors to replace any that get lost in combat.

Plan B
CS oracle slingshot

as above, but change research to CoL.


I think we can get CoL shortly before we can get the oracle, so we do have a straight choice between CS and MC slingshots from it. We want CoL for courthouses anyway, but if we go for the MC attempt, we can get CS from a prophet eventually (though perhaps instead of building a shrine). Going straight for CoL should also give us a religion, though we do not have to adopt it.

I suppose the question is, getting which of collosus or beauracracy earlier gives the most benefit ? If osaka was our captitol then I would advocate cs slingshot for sure but kyoto won't benefit from early cs that much so maybe safer for MC shot.

Your plan sounds excellent mboza, good luck.

Good analysis Mboza. If work boat hammers really start dissapearing after 10 turns of not building on it, I think the obelisk rush is worth it.
I still favor the MC slingshot, I think we can have the Oracle before CoL(we build a copper city which will cost us a bunch) and I don't see CS helping us very much right now. Not having to go for CoL right now gives us time to research other usefull techs like Pottery, Fishing, AH, Agri etc.

Why only a 3 pop rush to finish Oracle? Is it the max allowed? If the city goes to 8 pop, could it whip 4 pop?

TDK

If the city goes to 8 pop, could it whip 4 pop?

We'd never be able to get to pop 8 to whip 4, too many unhappy mouths to feed.

Interestingly, there is a coast square just out of view 3SE of Kyoto. Borders pop in 16 turns, and we should be able to send a WB over then.

I don't think we'll be getting anymore border pops in Kyoto, cause borders only expand 2 across water.

MC is definitely safer, but less lucrative in science and religion. But getting MC allows us to build a forge and speed up the GP from Kyoto.

I think we'd benefit more, sooner by getting MC. We'd get a prophet/engineer earlier. We could research sailing and make another fishing village around Kyoto sooner, which would give us the 4th city to move the capital.

Getting MC gets up ~1000 beakers free. When we get our GP, we'll either get another ~1000 beakers (toward CS or Machinery) or ~350 hammers free. I think that staggered reward is better than the more risky ~1700 beakers free we'd get for CS.

Quick argument for CoL->CS: Religion would be really nice right now. Our holy city would most likely be on the new continent, helping us fogbust.

Either way, you've got a good whipping plan. Good luck.

I think CS slingshot is too risky. For research we should get any needed worker techs like pottery, CoL for courthouses, and then head towards our Sams. With 6 warriors we should be fine against even barb archers as long as we are fortified in forests until we can get that copper city settled. I wish we had built up a little gold by doing stonehenge for awhile before Oracle was available as we are going to slow down research a lot when we get that 3rd city. Courthouses should get it back under control though.

I don't think we'll be getting anymore border pops in Kyoto, cause borders only expand 2 across water.

Yes, but the squares in question are only 2 from land, just not Kyoto. So I think that the borders will expand, though I might check this by playing with world builder. Even then, as we are whipping an obelisk instead of a WB, we do not have one going spare, so it might not make any difference.


I suppose the question is, getting which of collosus or beauracracy earlier gives the most benefit ? If osaka was our captitol then I would advocate cs slingshot for sure but kyoto won't benefit from early cs that much so maybe safer for MC shot.

I think Bureaucracy is better than the colossus even for Kyoto. We get +50% commerce, which is equivalent or better than increasing from 2 to 3 commerce per sea square, and we also get the extra hammers. And we do not have an alternative to Bureaucracy yet, so no loss there.

So the question is whether we can research CoL in time for CS without delaying the oracle? If not, then we have to go for pottery and MC. If we can, can we afford to ignore pottery, writing etc while researching CoL?

If we already had pottery, than I would just start on CoL, as we need it anyway, and see how far we got. But it would be a disaster to complete the oracle without either CoL or pottery, and I doubt that we can delay the oracle much to accomodate a slower tech pace.

At the moment CoL is 38 turns for 783 beakers at 17/turn (60%), (or 32 turns at 70% - 20 beakers/turn) which does not add up, we are getting a 20% bonus. This for having a prerequisite tech, and we also get 1 bonus beaker/turn for existing.

We are actually producing 19/turn, just 2 of those are going into gold. Switching appropriately between 60 and 70% science should cut it down to 33 turns. We have 2 gems that will be worked over the next couple of turns, giving a net +8 beakers, which might bring it down to 24 turns, if we wait until we have both. (we get +5 in three turns for the extra pop, and another +3 when the oasis switches to the second mine in 9 turns)

The oracle will get 44 hammers from the obelisk overflow, 44 hammers from the wb overflow, and 66 hammers from the 3pop whip at the end, which leaves 71 hammers from normal production, some 36 turns, slightly less if growth allows.

The copper city can be built in 30 turns, if Osaka builds warrior (to expand to 3 pop), settler, without chopping, so we might be able to go pottery->CoL and still get CS.

So 9 turns for pottery, 21/24 turns of CoL before the copper city is built, and still 6 turns to finish CoL before the oracle finishes.

After all that, at the moment my plan is to continue with pottery, and then switch to CoL. The worker is tied up for the next 9 turns gem mining, barbs permitting. After that he could chop a forest or two for the settler, although I think I would prefer to start a road to the copper and keep the forests for the palace. Any suggestions for forest chopping? I will try to MM the tax rate to take account of the 20% bonus, and if we get CoL before the oracle finishes, the option is there to take the expensive CS, if not then MC is good enough.

CS gives us Bureaucracy, and saves 700 beakers, and CoL gives us a religion and courthouses. MC gives us forges + engineers, the option of the colossus. Both are needed for sams.

Now that I have worked out that I might just be able to have my cake and eat it, what else should be researched after pottery? Should I just switch to writing, or is the courthouse more important than libraries (save 5 gold in Osaka, and again in the copper city, not quite making enough science to compensate by building libraries, but we can make scientists). Do we want agriculture and AH for improving Osaka, or will they wait a little while longer?

Finally, are we all doing 20 turns for the first round, or should I just do 10 now that it is starting to get exciting?

Just realised that I have spent so long writing this, my plan to play until finishing pottery this afternoon might have to be postponed until this evening, doh.

Also, CS slingshot is risky cause CoL requires Writing which we don't have.

Doh, of course. So the CoL time above is going to be delayed 8-10 turns anyway. Writing after pottery, or something else?

I would prefer writing so we can start towards an academy asap.

I'm happy with 20 turns for everyone first round ?

Writing would be nice as we can get open borders and adopt Isabellas religion.

TDK

20 turns for everybody is good. I agree, Writing after Pottery.

I also agree in roading towards the copper city. Have we agreed exactly where we are going to put the copper city yet?

I don't think we should site it to need a border pop. The red dot is probably the best site, lots of forest to chop as well for further expansion/army.

Finished:

0 2200 BC - switch Kyoto to obelisk and whip for 2 pop
1 2170 - defeat 2 barb warriors, 3rd advances to sheep. Obelisk builds, overflows 45 hammers to Oracle, Kyoto grows, doh - switch Osaka to warrior for growth
3 2110 BC gem mine complete, W warrior defeats barb, claims hilltop.
4 2080 Osaka borders expand, start 2nd gem mine, barb appears on desert hill SE, improve crabs SW of Kyoto
5 2050, Judaism founded in a distant land (Spain), Osaka grows to 3, works oasis and 2 mines, Isabella adopts Organised Religion
6 2020 Defeat barb warrior
7 1990 Discover Pottery, start writing
9 1930 finished gem mine, started road
10 1900 Isabella has built north of the copper site, Kyoto borders do not expand across
11 1870 finished road, started road to copper
16 1720 finish writing, start CoL, Isabella is annoyed, so no open borders yet
19 1630 kill barb warrior
20 1600 - whipped WB in Kyoto

killed 13 barb warriors for no loss, no sign yet of archers. Gave some defensive warriors woodsmen promotions if they were defending forests. Some warriors are still due promotions. One barb is visible by a warrior (who is due a promotion) on the east coast

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Team_One_SG002_BC1600_01.Civ4SavedGame

Research rate went from 60% up to 80% (to finish writing) and should come back down to 70%. CoL is 20 turns away.

Oracle is 89/225. WB will add 45. Kyoto will grow to 5 next turn so should reach 6 comfortably for last whip.

Settler is 6 turns away, could be whipped next turn.

I agree with the red dot site, but Izzy has built 3 squares north, in the grassland.

Red dot looks like the best to me also.

I saw that AlanH posted the WB whip overflow strategy in the Maintenance thread. Seems like we're not the only ones trying to burn our excess pop that way. On a side note, I'm not sure why chopping doesn't have a wonder penalty, but whipping does.

When we have copper hooked up and are stronger, I think we should let part of the continent go into FOW. Hopefully, we can use that to get our axemen their 2nd promotion on barbs and maybe even take a barb city or two.

Red dot.

Oracle could be hurried at around 1300BC, which would give us a half descent chance of getting it.

Should Osaka build another settler right away so we can move that palace?
The copper city could start turning out a barracks and axemen by doing some serious chopping.

TDK

I'd like to see Osaka get a library and grow to 4 before we build the next settler. After we get the copper city connected and mined, we should cottage one of Osaka's FP. The oasis is good in the early game, but we start working a cottage now.

If we're going to chop out some axeman, what are we going to use them for? Barb attack/defense? Or attacking Isabella? If we're attacking Isabella, we may not need to build that 2nd setter for the 4th city. Also, if we're attacking Isabella, we should scout forward and see if we can steal a worker from her during the initial assault.

I think we should keep using the WB whip to speed things up in Kyoto. If we use Oracle on MC, we should use that to get Kyoto's Forge quicker. That means we shouldn't put any shields into a WB unless we're going to complete immediately.

I would start a barracks, (or granary?) in Osaka when the settler finishes. The copper will only be 11 turns away (2 turn move, 1 to settle, 8 to mine the copper?) so we could work the oasis and both gem mines for +3 food, and still get 4 hammers/turn for barracks. An axeman or two then solves all our barb problems, and we can push some of the fog busters out to explore more.

I would like to find where Madrid might be past the isthmus to the north, and see if there are any better city sites to the SW. Is it worth getting IW before founding the 4th city?

Teammates,

I will be away on some obscure island until saturday, please go ahead with the next round and I will just jump in later in the roster.

Good luck and well played everyone,

TDK

I think we should plan to settle further for now, if we only contact isabella and can get further good city sites then I would leave her in place for trade and not waste resources on an axe fight.

One more WB whip in Kyoto will give us a "free" workboat. But we then have to whip again for the last 22 hammers, which costs a happy face for 30 turns. 89/225 goes to 136/225 next turn with the overflow and 2 hammers. a finishing 3 pop 66 hammer whip leaves us with 23 hammers to get while gaining 45 food for the 6th pop. (should be 9 surplus food, so work a crab for 2/3 turns then make a citizen) Alternatively we could whip another WB (45 overflow) and then a 2 pop whip to finish (44) as soon as we reach 4 pop. But that would cost us heavily in the happiness dept and only save 2 or 3 turns (but we get yet another WB).

I realise that we need open borders to get past the northern spanish city, which I assume is barcelona. So little chance of scouting out madrid. Both spanish cities are on grassland, surrounded by masses of jungle. If we get there before the culture bonus gets too large, both should fall to a relatively small number of axemen with 4 or 5 xp, which gets us some little way to our fast conquest. I think I would raze both cities, (unless they are holy cities?) but Madrid should have a reasonable spot (and substantial culture bonus).

Spain might be running out of room to expand in the north, so we might start seeing settlers trying to wander through our territory. Also, Isabella seems unlikely to offer open borders until we adopt buddhism, and we are not going to get much religion from her until we get open borders. So tech trading with Isabella looks pretty remote at the moment, even if we went straight for alphabet next.

Any thoughts on a site for a 4th city? There do not seem to be any obvious ones. Unless there is something just in the fog, or we discover horses/iron, the only 3 resource site is the cow island NW of Kyoto. Our southern most warrior can take woodsman 2, so we might want to send him off into the unknown. Of course, Osaka is 22 turns to complete a settler from scratch, and has 6 turns to go for this one. So finishing CoL and Iron working is almost doable before the second settler will complete.

I'm back now.
good job Strobe keeping us alive
Hopefully the barbs are giving the AI as much trouble as us. I think metal casting slingshot is the right choice at this point. It would be very risky to go for civil serice sling shot at this point. Metal casting also gets us forges which get us 2 extra happiness on the continent.
I will try to get up to speed and give some more usefull comments later.

We could finish up our settler and pump out some axemen and attack Isabella, but what does that gain us? If we spend shields on axemen instead of a granary, library and courthouse in Osaka, then we grow slower and research slower. While we'd get some gold for taking cities, I'm not sure that it would make up for it.

I think it is safe to assume that we are alone on this land mass with Isabella. So that means we'll definitely need to ferry our troops around the world in galleys at least, possibly galleons. If we were on a Pangaea map, I'd be in favor of attacking her now. She will be the easiest civ to eliminate cause we're on the same island. I don't think we need to rush into attacking her ASAP.

We haven't used the whip in Osaka, cause it takes a big chunk of commerce away from us. If we build the granary, we will grow quicker, which will open up whipping as a legit strategy for Osaka.

What does everyone think about researching Sailing soon, building a galley and a settler in Kyoto and settling one of those other islands? This is a hand modified map and based on the appearance of those two islands to the north, there will probably be more islands within reach of their (expanded) cultural borders. Once we expand those borders, we may be able to send WB scouting further. And even if not, we will get another city to do the WB whip in to build wonders.

If we settle on the stone, we'd get the 100% bonus to our whip carrover, which could come in handy, though marble would be a lot better. We would have to wait till we got the great prophet to research CS before we research masonry.

It would give a 4th city which would allow us to move the capital, though with 2 on the mainland and 2 in the islands it shouldn't make any real difference in upkeep. A courthouse for 90 hammers in Osaka would save us 6 gold/turn, where a palace would cost 240 and save 11/turn.

Harok and blastoidstalker, either of you can take the game, if you want. The rest of us have already played in the first round.

FYI, I was looking at the progress page's culture chart to see what other teams did.

2 teams founded an early religion. 2 teams finished a wonder circa 1300-1600 BC. I think one finished Stonehenge and the other finished the Oracle, because one teams culture increases faster than the other.

I can't play until Thursday night at the earliest so Blast please feel free to go first.

I agree on building at this stage and leaving isalbella alone. I don't think there is enough to gain attacking her for the cost. We will need to adopt the same religion as her though to ensure she does not back stab us.

I like the idea of getting a galley out as our next focus.

I think optics may need to be our next beeline tech wise once we have civil service/col. I think our next key strategy should be to meet other civs and see what we are up against and ensure we get the correct strategy, circumnavigating the globe may be a real requirement if islands are spread out. In this case concentrating on infrastructure/science/commerce will be key to hit liberiliasm and take astronomy as free tech.

The suggestions of sailing and metal casting research fit in nicely with optics so I am all for this and would still like to use a prophet for civil service so refrain from researching masonary just yet.

Squeezing a WB build into copper city might be worth doing to explore coast.

I think we should focus on techs that get us to Sams and Cats as fast as possible. I would love to attack Isabella soon because when going for conquest it is always nice to get rid of at least one civ early on so you don't have to take as many cities especially culture rich ones. But we aren't ready for that yet. If we pull off the Oracle and get a few axes out there soon after we may be ready then though.

Ok, tech options are:
Metal Casting - via oracle
CS - waiting for GP (will GP finish CS in one go, or do we want to put some beakers in while we wait?)
Alphabet - Isabella is not yet in a mood to trade, though tech trading might lead her towards open borders. Not on path to sams, cats or optics
IW - need iron for sams, useful for city placement decisions, on optics path
maths - for cats, but also need masonry, so cats will wait for CS GP. Handy for chopping
sailing - useful, but Kyoto perhaps needs forge, granary before galley and settler for occupying other islands? And the 3rd city will also have a queue of things that could be built before galleys.
agriculture (hunting)-> Animal husbandry - for horses, worker techs useful but not vital yet. hopefully get via trading?

I think I would go IW then alpha, and try and trade for the rest. Perhaps IW, sailing, alpha, or alpha first, and see what Izzie has to trade.

I don't think the GP will finish CS for us, but I'm not positive.

Sailing is not a priority immediately. It's cheap, so it should only take 5 turns or so to research. Like mboza pointed out, Kyoto should get a forge first. I don't think it needs a granary though, it grows fast enough already. And when we do decide to settle those islands, we can build the settler first, then the galley.

Alphabet would be