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

Signing in :)

Me too. I'll send out pm's anyway.

I just played 25 turns in our practice game, we're handling the barb rush much better in the 2nd go around.

Hi, I'm here as well.

Welcome to rrau and grahamiam. Nice to have you aboard. :salute:

A note, I received a PM from The Capt. He left on vacation today and will be gone for a week and a half. He will return a week from Sunday, the 12th of August.

Do you think we will have enough food to make the capital into GP city? Sorry for the duplicate posts. I guess I tried to make them right before the forum went down for maintenance

That's OK rrau, we like the spam count!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Just thought I would post Redbad's spoiler thread comments from our trial game succession game thread.

Redbad wrote:
As I’m not likely to join in the start of SGOTM2, I’ll post some thoughts now.

copper
It is hard to imagine that SGOTM2 will be so unforgiving to have and raging barbs and no nearby copper. There's little fun in SGOTMs when half the teams are wiped out within say 70 turns. Likely Gyathaar will anticipate that the teams will either start for archery or for bronze. And the teams that do neither will have Kyoto on its island as a refuge.

As our test shows it is even questionable if teams can utilise a copper source in time if it is located outside the starting area. We have to take extra care here as the city we’re to found isn’t our capitol. So it will not have a free source of culture. The leader traits don’t provide culture neither and we most likely won’t aim for an early religion. Getting a workable fat cross will require an obelisk?

A source of copper popping up under Kyoto will give teams who loose their mainland town a chance to make landfall again (providing that the mainland can be reached with galleys). But it will not benefit our second city, for it has no trade route to Kyoto early on. Therefore I do expect a source copper near our settler. On the assumption there is indeed copper, it would be a shame if we settle on top of it. The only places we can be sure won’t contain copper are the floodplain and the rice. I don’t think we should settle either.

research
My recommendation would be: mining -> bronze. After that is dependant on if and where there’s copper. When copper is available we could do a 2-pointed spearhead: on the one hand research towards bureaucracy/astronomy and the other hand warlike expansion. Warlike expansion has many advantages over autonomic expansion: AI cities have improved gardens, they often come with workers, it adds to our military xp. We should however raze the cities that add little, as they will only burden our economy. As our goal is conquest, research is important and population/territory is not.

Kyoto
As mentioned earlier it is quite possible Kyoto is meant as an insurance against untimely extermination. As we don’t intend to be driven of the mainland, the question is how to utilise Kyoto. The city can’t do much commerce and very little production. It can however do a lot of food. That means building settlers/workers or turn it into a rushing centre. Either way we need 4 nets for the fish and the crabs. As it’s not very likely we want many settlers or workers the question will be: What to rush? We can decide to rush an army. As Kyoto will most likely have no copper/iron/horse on its own and rushing archers isn’t desirable, wanting to rush an army would mean getting an coastal connection through the fog and having our second city with coastal connection also. Alternative could be that there’s copper/iron/horse present close by, which can be connected by founding 1 other city.
In stead of rushing an army we could rush a wonder like the Oracle. In case we can’t reach the mainland from Kyoto by using galleys then wonder rushing is one the few useful things we could do with Kyoto.

checking in :wavey:

Again, welcome Grahamiam. :)

I was thinking about the effect of distance from the capital and maintenance costs and what that will do to our economy. We are essentially building an empire with an extended distance between it and our capital. So Redbad's comments regarding cities to keep if they help and dumping those that will be a burden are right on.

I also think research should be Mining and then Brone Working. If we can get early Copper, we will be further ahead in this game of Conquest.

On settler location, it would be nice to settle on a hill, but that fresh water is real tempting. Also, I don't think we should settle on that FP tile, too valuable as a cottage.

Lurker Willow checking in! :)

I'll be watching this thread only, but don't expect much intelligent advice, as I have never actually played Civ IV (and don't own a computer that could). :p

With that disclaimer, I wonder if moving the capital at some point would be a good idea to reduce maintenance costs. Not really early on, but sometime down the road. :hmm:

On settler location, it would be nice to settle on a hill, but that fresh water is real tempting. Also, I don't think we should settle on that FP tile, too valuable as a cottage.
the grass hill? what benefit is that other than defensive? No extra hammers unless it's a plains hill (which it isn't). Possible sites are NW (plains, coastal, gets rice, FP, and fish-ocean in fat cross) and S or SW. Other than the NW spot, we really have no idea if the other spots are better/worse. We also don't know what's to the E, so moving the warrior SE or SW as a starting move seems viable. Then maybe post a pic before settling so we can discuss some more?

the grass hill? what benefit is that other than defensive? No extra hammers unless it's a plains hill (which it isn't). Possible sites are NW (plains, coastal, gets rice, FP, and fish-ocean in fat cross) and S or SW. Other than the NW spot, we really have no idea if the other spots are better/worse. We also don't know what's to the E, so moving the warrior SE or SW as a starting move seems viable. Then maybe post a pic before settling so we can discuss some more?
No, you're correct that the grass hill would only provide a defensive benefit and that isn't enough justification to use it. I also think you're right that we should move the warrior first and make a screenie.

It looks to me, and I'm a terrible fog gazer btw, that the coast continues along our red border to the south? So, settling NW would lose the river? However we would get fish and rice. The best chance at seeing something then is Warrior SE or, if we want to consider settling NW, to the hill and see what is on the other side of the rice.

yep, NW loses the river (no gold there) and it's associated health benefit (which isn't really a problem since you get the fish as compensation). It also puts a lot more water into our fatcross, which, imho, is a bit more of a problem.

The FP looks totally out of place, like it was added by the MM to make the choice of staying put more difficult, or maybe to push us to move.

Is fractal pangea, arch, continents?

yep, NW loses the river (no gold there) and it's associated health benefit (which isn't really a problem since you get the fish as compensation). It also puts a lot more water into our fatcross, which, imho, is a bit more of a problem.
If we can, I'd like to stay with the river if possible. Especially if we find Copper near the river and can connect it without roads. I also don't want too much ocean water in our fat cross, if we cna help it.
The FP looks totally out of place, like it was added by the MM to make the choice of staying put more difficult, or maybe to push us to move.
I think this is typical of fractal maps, although I wouldn't put it past Gyathaar to add it just for our consideration. :mischief: They generally have all sorts of mixed terrain, at least as far as I have experienced playing trial games. ;)
Is fractal pangea, arch, continents?
To answer this, I did 5 tests of new games with Fractal Maps and entered World Builder instead of playing them. The maps we mostly continent maps, as the image attached below shows. In one case, it was one very large, almost pangea, continent with a much smaller one off to one side.

I have a feeling Gyathaar used a Fractal Map to cover his tracks on map type and has modified it to suit our needs. Iirc, last game, someone checked the details of the game and got the map type from there.

Anyway, they are mostly continents type maps.

Remember we won't get automatic border expansion with this city. Maybe a move to put more of the hill in the inner 9? It almost looks like there's more of them to the east. But then we lose the river commerce and freshwater bonus.

That or we'll have to divert research to build a cheap oblisk. I don't know if that's feasible or not before the barbs start coming and we need to have defenses in place. If it wasn't raging barbs, I'd not even suggest it moving away from the river. It still doesn't seem quite worth the loss of the long term benefits on the river but I thought I'd toss it out for consideration.

I have a feeling Gyathaar used a Fractal Map to cover his tracks on map type and has modified it to suit our needs. Iirc, last game, someone checked the details of the game and got the map type from there.

No they didnt.. map type last time was listed as SGOTM01 I believe (it was also a modified fractal btw.. but I didnt specify it that time since it was made before factal map script was made available to the public :p )
I also edit the map settings so they may or may not be the correct ones that show up :evil:

No they didnt.. map type last time was listed as SGOTM01 I believe (it was also a modified fractal btw.. but I didnt specify it that time since it was made before factal map script was made available to the public :p )
I also edit the map settings so they may or may not be the correct ones that show up :evil:
You're so mean!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Remember we won't get automatic border expansion with this city. Maybe a move to put more of the hill in the inner 9? It almost looks like there's more of them to the east. But then we lose the river commerce and freshwater bonus.
The border expansion is a good point. Have to think about that some. :hmm:
I think if we can find some wooded hills out a ways to supprt our warriors in defensive positions, we can hold out until the Barb Axes start appearing. In test games, that has been about 500BC. Once the Axes show, we'd better have something up our sleeves or we're going to end up in our capital. :cry:
That or we'll have to divert research to build a cheap oblisk. I don't know if that's feasible or not before the barbs start coming and we need to have defenses in place. If it wasn't raging barbs, I'd not even suggest it moving away from the river. It still doesn't seem quite worth the loss of the long term benefits on the river but I thought I'd toss it out for consideration.
What route we take up the research tree is a very important consideration. How much risk are we willing to take? What objectives do we hope to achieve? :)

Remember we won't get automatic border expansion with this city. Maybe a move to put more of the hill in the inner 9? It almost looks like there's more of them to the east. But then we lose the river commerce and freshwater bonus.
we will definitely get a border expansion, it's the capitol with the palace which generates 2cpt. Oblisks may be nice for a 2nd city, but not right now.

imho, stick to the original plan (mining-> BW). If no copper, then we pause and rethink what we want to research. It'll most likely be dependant on terrain.

we will definitely get a border expansion, it's the capitol with the palace which generates 2cpt. Oblisks may be nice for a 2nd city, but not right now.
Our settler represents our second city. Kyoto is on the island with the Crabs and Fish.

Which does bring up another point, what do we want to do with Kyoto? Lots of food and 2 Hammers. :rolleyes: Surrounded by ocean tiles, no commerce connection until Astronomy? Looks like we'll need Bronze Working to have Slavery and pop rushes. We'll need 4 Work Boats for sure, but prolly not all at once? Great Person factory, as suggested by rrau I believe? :mischief:

crap, you're right :blush: GP factory and/or pop rushing wonder city I guess?

Woohoo! I have internet conn at the inlaws ;) :rockon:

I'd like to put up a few suggestions:
1) Maybe we could decide on where to move the warrior, move it and post another screenshot for discussion? I'd move the warrior to the hill for the best possible view.

2) I agree we shouldn't settle the FP. FPs are power squares in cIV as it was in Civ3, albeit with a commercial emphasis rather than pure growth.

3) With 2 cities right away, CS sling should be doable. We could try the following research path:
Mining --> BW --> Pots --> Writing and then up the Myst path to CoL.
With BW we whip a Lib in Kyoto at the first possible opportunity (I'd grow the city to size 6 (1 unhappy) when we can do a 3-citizen whip and do the whipping on the next turn) and set it up at size 5: 2 fish, 1 crab and 2 scientists. We may also consider whipping a work boat in Kyoto if the city doesn't grow fast enough.
Our second city could then push out military at least until we get writing (after that consider building a Lib for scientists and border exp and then start the Oracle, which probably should be whipped on the same turn we get CoL).

This research plan may put us awful close to other AIs finishing the Oracle.
However, should we succeed (and I think we have a good chance at it, considering my test games where pretty close and I never had a second city then) we should be firmly in contention for the laurels.
I propose the following builds:
Kyoto: Work Boat --> WB --> WB --> Lib
Osaka: Worker --> Warriors until we can hook up Bronze or else just warriors all the way until we can start the Oracle.

Our settler represents our second city. Kyoto is on the island with the Crabs and Fish.

Which does bring up another point, what do we want to do with Kyoto? Lots of food and 2 Hammers. :rolleyes: Surrounded by ocean tiles, no commerce connection until Astronomy? Looks like we'll need Bronze Working to have Slavery and pop rushes. We'll need 4 Work Boats for sure, but prolly not all at once? Great Person factory, as suggested by rrau I believe? :mischief:
I think this could be a very good chance to test out Caste System. We'll have +12 food in Kyoto iirc (or is it even one more with Lighthouse? :confused: ). Once we get a theatre, we could control unhappyness with lux rate and have 6 specialists. We could either use the GLs for GAs (something I've never done unless in a tight space race) or just pop out Scientists for research.

Different GP's research different towards different techs. Great priests, great artists, great scientist and the great economists/trader all research different techs. Although a Great Economist also gives a food and gold bonus in the city you put them in, so might be nice for the GP factory city if needed to get another GP. I'd probably vote towards them researching techs.

Different GP's research different towards different techs. Great priests, great artists, great scientist and the great economists/trader all research different techs. Although a Great Economist also gives a food and gold bonus in the city you put them in, so might be nice for the GP factory city if needed to get another GP. I'd probably vote towards them researching techs.
I think we may need to do some of this. There is a spreadsheet around with the necessary data on it but I can't find it atm and my daughter is playing runescape on my computer that has the spreadsheet. :rolleyes: If anyone needs it, I can attach it later. Also, there is this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952) that talks about using GP to discover techs.

We may also be able to use some GP to provide research, gold and hammers if we think that would be good.
I think this could be a very good chance to test out Caste System.
If we use Caste, Slavery is out as they are under the same category, Labor.
Perhaps we start with Slavery and, once we have ourselves established and expanding, we can change to Caste? :crazyeye:
1) Maybe we could decide on where to move the warrior, move it and post another screenshot for discussion? I'd move the warrior to the hill for the best possible view.
If there are forests to the east of the Settler, we won't see much to the south from the hill, I don't think. Moving to the southeast will see more tiles?
3) With 2 cities right away, CS sling should be doable. We could try the following research path:
Mining --> BW --> Pots --> Writing and then up the Myst path to CoL.
The problem with 2 cities is the maintenance on the second. Until it is up and running, we may have to run 90 or even 80% science rate which may actually slow research a bit. Hope not?
I agree with your ideas of the slingshot if there is Copper available to us with Bronze Working. Then we can defend ourselves against those raging Barbs. :rolleyes: But, as Grahamiam said, we can cross that bridge when we get there.

Redbad made an excellent point after our last game. That we need to consider specializing cities more and decide what should be built in each, and more importantly, what we should not build in each. This will be especially true in hammer poor Kyoto, but also in cities we found or capture. What we build will also depend upon our goals. And the name of this game is Conquest!! :D

Some late breaking news about your game:

1. We now know that there are seven rivals on the map (not including the barbs).

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

Does anyone even know if we can get 7gpt at the beginning? *goes to start a practice game to see*

Edit: Screenie of what it would take to get 7gpt. I'm not sure it's do-able. Maybe we need to grow the capital first?

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f259/AngelSpice2/trialrr.jpg

Osaka: Worker --> Warriors until we can hook up Bronze or else just warriors all the way until we can start the Oracle.

I'm not sure I agree with this build order with these settings. In my practice games, losing the growth of the capital at the beginning hurts us too much. In most games I do make a worker first, but I don't think that's the way to go in this one as I end up losing my town to barbs because I can't make enough warriors to picket by time the rush comes. I usually only have 2 or 3 warriors in town at this point and I lose all the workers improvments anyways.

Does anyone even know if we can get 7gpt at the beginning? *goes to start a practice game to see*

Edit: Screenie of what it would take to get 7gpt. I'm not sure it's do-able. Maybe we need to grow the capital first?
This is even worse than I thought it would be!! :eek: :eek:

We need to discuss any ideas anyone has about this. It puts us in a tough position as we can't build Warriors, or anything else for that matter, until we build a city and building it will cost us dearly in maintenance and tech development. However, without a sufficient number of warriors, we will lose that city to raging barbs! :eek:

:hmm: Guess I'll :sleep: on it and then, tomorrow evening, try to create a practice game and see what happens? :mischief:

We have 4 days until the save is released... :crazyeye:

I’ve got a moment to pop in and comment. I am not checking in as I don’t know if I can pop in again before the 23th.

Rrau calculation is a little off as we’ll have 2 cities:
Kyoto: 8 commerce from palace, 1 from citycenter and 2 from fish/crab = 11 commerce
Osaka: 1 from citycenter and 1 from floodplain = 2 commerce
Totalling 13 commerce
This will give 7 coins and 6 beakers at 50% research.

Kyoto:
Has happy boundary at size 7. Will have culture expansion after 8 and again after 75 turns. That means that we can sail to the mainland after 83 turns when there are no more then 4 water tiles in between (3 will be within our culture and the fourth will be coastal water). I really don’t expect Kyoto to be further from the mainland as that. In that situation we can establish a base from Kyoto. Meaning Kyoto initially has to build something like 4 workboats, a settler, a worker, 2 warriors and a galley.
Having bronze would enable us to rush things in Kyoto and make a good decision on where to settle from Kyoto.

Osaka:
I don’t think we should start with building warriors in Osaka. We have nothing to fear before the barbs arrive. When building a worker first we can farm the floodplain and mine the hill. I would advice to have both the floodplain and a hill within the starting 9 tiles, I even prefer it to being on the riverbank.
I don’t think we should gear Osaka towards commerce. With the raging barbs it’s much safer to optimise Osaka for production, and frankly we don’t have much time in the beginning to research something like pots. Even if we find copper, I think mysticism and sailing come before pottery IMO.
We have a long way to go for research. Building an initial small army not only protects us against the barbs, it also enables us to snatch an AI capitol. AI capitols are often excellent research sites. Besides it even takes quite some research to have substantially better military as the axeman.
With bronze we’re able to chop somewhere down the line an obelisk for culture expansion. (Though it would be very pleasant to capture us a religious city.)

Have to go now and good luck with the start.

This is even worse than I thought it would be!! :eek: :eek:
Yeh, I thought it would be 3-4 gpt :eek:
This certainly throws things around. If I was playing this by myself, I would consider searching out an AI rival with my warrior/settler pair and snuzzle behind their borders until I'm ready to whip the Oracle in Kyoto :lol: Guess that's just a little too :crazyeye: Besides, I've only ever won monarch games in which the CS slingshot worked and that's an addiction I need to get over :blush:
So I'm ready to try anything new :D It would surprise me if none of the others went for the CS sling and I still think the best teams will make it.

@Redbad: The reason I suggested Pots, is that it's the fastest route to Writing for libs and scientists.

Different GP's research different towards different techs. Great priests, great artists, great scientist and the great economists/trader all research different techs. Although a Great Economist also gives a food and gold bonus in the city you put them in, so might be nice for the GP factory city if needed to get another GP. I'd probably vote towards them researching techs.
Reason I mentioned scientists, is that they give 50% more research, but it'll be a while until research is too expensive for other GLs to completely research a tech.

Apologies for the triple post, but I thought of another option: we scout with our warrior/settler until we get BW, then move to the nearest bronze site and plop our settler on top of it.
Another :crazyeye: (tm) idea from CB inc [pimp]

Actually, I was thinking we'd wander/scout with our warrior/settler pair and when we find Bronze, plop down on it (or right next to it to get the extra hammers from the improved tile - depends on how bad the barbs are) and it would be good if it was right next to an AI capital :mischief: . That way our army doesn't have too far to walk for the first war.:D. With the high maintenance we'll have on our cities, we'll need to move the capital as soon as we can while still maintaining war momentum.

In case anyone is intersted, I produced a save that, kind of, sort of, mirrors Gyathaar's piece of art. I'll attach it below.

For some reason, the world builder wouldn't let me place Rice where I wanted, so I used Corn. In addition, I discovered the Warrior must be on a hill as in my first try, I couldn't see the Fish, so I changed it to a hill and voila!! :rolleyes:

Last thing is that, for some reason, the area showing for resources, food and hammers, etc., is for where the original units were located before I moved them. So, when the settler comes up, you see too much in th e"fog". I'm not as talented as Gyathaar?? :blush:

Will there be maintenance costs for the settler/warrior pair if settling is delayed? If so, that would reduce the effective cost of settling early compared with waiting to settle.

Will there be maintenance costs for the settler/warrior pair if settling is delayed? If so, that would reduce the effective cost of settling early compared with waiting to settle.
Not initially. The maintenance costs for units wasn't really a problem. I built a second city and, after building a worker, built a small army of Warriors (5 or 6). They handled the Barbs fairly well, although some got through and pillaged all the improvements.

The real maintenance problem starts when cities are built. I built 4 cities, 1 near the capital (copper source) and another near where our settler was. The maintenance went from 7 to 11 and for the second city it was 12 GPT. It totally bankrupted us, no research. Then I started losing warriors until the GPT covered the maintenance costs. This was also the time Axes started showing up!! :eek: :eek:

The biggest problem I see is GPT and research!! We are really going to have to decide what we want to research anduse it well. Tangents are going to be very, very expensive in this game... :mischief:

I'll try another map tomorrow and give it a shot and see what happens. :crazyeye:

With the high maintenance we'll have on our cities, we'll need to move the capital as soon as we can while still maintaining war momentum.
I think this will depend upon whether we can find land near our capital or not. With a little pop-rushing, the capital is fairly productive. I built 4 workboats, a settler, 3 or 4 warriors, a worker and 2 galleys before the change of BC to 0 AD.

We might want to think about sending the 3rd or 4th workboat on a little recon before we use it to build a fishing boat?

Wouldn't it be interesting if we can get to a land mass near Kyoto? If Redbad's assumption is correct, it would be interesting indeed. :D

Here's another trial. I played the other one, altering variables, a few times and needed another one. (Leif, there's a reveal tile button in the worldbuilder. After clicking it, I think you right click on the tiles you want to be hidden from where the original settlers were.)

Here's another trial. I played the other one, altering variables, a few times and needed another one. (Leif, there's a reveal tile button in the worldbuilder. After clicking it, I think you right click on the tiles you want to be hidden from where the original settlers were.)
Thanks, I'll have a look. It was my first time in Worldbuilder. :mischief: The hardest thing was getting that dang river in the right place. :rolleyes:

Off to play!! :D

I played it a couple of times. My first attempt was to minimize the number of cities built and I got surrounded by the Aztecs, not good.

The second time, I built an earlier settler and settled near the Gold Hill, figuring it would offset the maintenance costs, and it did. The lesson is that we will need an economy and Cottages will have some importance. Also, I made a run at Stonehenge and losing it provided some much needed gold, not a bad idea if we don't have too many Barbs coming at us.

My research went: Mining, Bronze, Mysticism, Pottery, Iron Working and then Agriculture and Animal Husbandry to Writing in the second attempt. I did that because I realized that I had to try something when Copper didn't show. And to get to Iron Working, I needed some Gold for research.

The early worker is fine and in your game, I hardly faced any Barbs as The Aztecs were so close to the south. Problem was that then I had to worry about being encompassed by them.

And I don't have any idea how we are even going to attempt a run at the CS slingshot???? :rolleyes:

In all my attempts, I've failed due to the slower research rate. Sometimes the oracle was even built before I could research mysticism (had to research IW in all of those cases, though). Maybe we need to just focus on economy instead and build an army and go chopping our neighbors to bits? Get them down to one city and extract techs and finish them off when the peace treaty expires.

Maybe we need to just focus on economy instead and build an army and go chopping our neighbors to bits? Get them down to one city and extract techs and finish them off when the peace treaty expires.
Two problems with that strategy. The first is finding a metal to build an army with. As you say, in both our practice games, no Copper meant having to research Iron Working.

Second is no techs for peace without Alphabet. :cry: I think we'll be into the AD's before we see that? :rolleyes:

I am thinking about building another scenario and trying to see how long we can go without building that second city? Once built, Mining goes from 10 to 15 turns and Bronze from around 18 or 20 to 33! :eek: :eek: :eek:
So we may pick up 20 turns by waiting. The question is, is it really worth it?? :crazyeye:

I looked at the pic again. You'll notice that there are two squares at both bottom corners of Kyoto where you can't see the food/gold. I'm wondering if it's not a lot closer to other lands than we think. If so, maybe we need to focus on establishing beachheads closer to home and let that settler/ warrior die if it's going to hinder us that much. All I know is I'm getting very frustrated trying these trials. It feels like playing Sid level to me. Seriously, it's NOT fun. I signed up for a monarch level game and this is playing harder than the Emperor games I've tried and lost.

[edit] If I do manage to get a second city up by the distant city, and an army, I can't afford a big enough one to take out the longbows and elephants and catapults my axemen are up against.

[edit 2] I tried a couple scenarios where I waited until bronze working or IW to settle. I survived the barbs only if I settled on the metal and had enough cash to upgrade the warrior. (that game I had failed to get stonehenge a turn or two earlier) Still ran into the trouble of not affording a big enough army to take out the longbows/cats

Just catching up on the reading, I've been home for 2 days with food posioning and haven't even thought of turning on the computer. That should tell you how bad I've felt.

I like the Library idea for Kyoto and then set it up for scientist to get our Academy going we need research to power through the higher maintenance costs.

Based on the maintenance costs should we try to gear the 2nd city as another commerce city with some production power. If it can produce enough commerce to offset itself we can let Kyoto be our commerce/science powerhouse. Basically the second city becomes a target/distraction for the barbs to attack while Kyoto grows. I've not played a test game long enough to get to barb axes (I'll try a few today), the barb archers can be handled by hill fortified archers of our own.

I looked at the pic again. You'll notice that there are two squares at both bottom corners of Kyoto where you can't see the food/gold. I'm wondering if it's not a lot closer to other lands than we think. If so, maybe we need to focus on establishing beachheads closer to home and let that settler/ warrior die if it's going to hinder us that much.
This was Redbad's specualtion as well. In the first trial I posted, I allowed us to travel to continents after expansion of Kyoto. Once Kyoto expands, we should be able to see something??
All I know is I'm getting very frustrated trying these trials. It feels like playing Sid level to me. Seriously, it's NOT fun. I signed up for a monarch level game and this is playing harder than the Emperor games I've tried and lost.
Please don't get too frustrated. Gyathaar likes to make puzzles that we need to work on to solve. I appreciate your spending time trying some of the concepts out in these trials and discussing them. :thanx:

Enough trials and we'll find something!! :thumbsup:

Just catching up on the reading, I've been home for 2 days with food posioning and haven't even thought of turning on the computer. That should tell you how bad I've felt.
Does that ever stink!! Hope your recovery is short. We need some serious head crazy idea thinking at this point!! :eek:
I like the Library idea for Kyoto and then set it up for scientist to get our Academy going we need research to power through the higher maintenance costs.

Based on the maintenance costs should we try to gear the 2nd city as another commerce city with some production power. If it can produce enough commerce to offset itself we can let Kyoto be our commerce/science powerhouse. Basically the second city becomes a target/distraction for the barbs to attack while Kyoto grows. I've not played a test game long enough to get to barb axes (I'll try a few today), the barb archers can be handled by hill fortified archers of our own.
I hope you get a chance to try some trial games. There are so many factors working in this it makes your head spin, careful now!! ;)

Seems to be almost a mathematical puzzle and there must be a simple answer?? :hmm:

How long do the raging barbs affect the game? If we light up our area does that prevent them from emerging ala Civ3? We don't want to overbuild for them but we do need to the be able to handle their onslaught. If we have nearby neighbors getting out an early city and claiming territory/removing fog could be important. But based on the high maintenance cost this may not be a good idea either.

How long do the raging barbs affect the game? If we light up our area does that prevent them from emerging ala Civ3? We don't want to overbuild for them but we do need to the be able to handle their onslaught. If we have nearby neighbors getting out an early city and claiming territory/removing fog could be important. But based on the high maintenance cost this may not be a good idea either.
In the game save that rrau posted, the Barbs weren't bad as the Aztecs were real close to the south and lite that area so they couldn't randomly appear. As in Civ3, they appear in the fog areas, so lighting areas up by being on hills is a very good thing. That is also why it is good to have border expansion, it lights up that much more area, not so many Warriors needed.

The save below has some Copper not too far away, but not in the city plot if built on the starting tiles. It also doesn't have a civ too close, so Barbs will be a problem if the area isn't lit up. :mischief:

EDIT - Got to go, be back in a few hours.

EDIT2 - corrected save, missed the flood plain.

The idea that both rrau and I had of scouting for bronze/iron and plop down on top of it when we find it, is getting better the more I think of it. We lose 2-3 shields, but depending on what other tiles are available, that may not affect us for a long time. (If the bronze is on desert, it's the same yield with mining as a plains hill (iirc))

After that, maybe research Masonry (needed to move the Palace?) and set up for a Palace chop, after we get more cities in that area?

I just played a test game and was doing well until I got ganged up on by the AI's in about 1500ad :mad:. I didn't even try for the slingshot since It doesn't seem possible. I did get archery before going and getting BW. It let me have less garrsions to drain my treasury. I could get by with two or three archers in the town and then use the gold to speed research some. I did come very close to losing my town once, though when 3 barbs all attacked the same turn :crazyeye:

I moved the palace while waiting to get samurai and I lagged on research, but my main problem was with only 3 towns, I just couldn't make units fast enough. I did take time to make the Heroic Epic in one of the towns. Maybe a bad choice?

I think one of the keys to getting as far as I did was the AI's were warring with each other alot.

@rrau - If you have any tests games you've built that you'd like to share, that would be nice because having been in world builder, I know what to expect... :rolleyes:

Just tried rrau's test game, I liked the shape of the land and having a nearby neighbors. Was able to light up the area with 4 warriors have only faced 1 barb archer and 1 warrior up to 1bout 1800bc. No copper in sight so I'll try one of the other test games. I think Redbad's speculation about having a source of copper nearby is important. Couple of questions, how have you been handling the overgrowth of Kyoto both for health and unhappiness? Also with only 1 FP how important is Pottery?

Leif - your Trial4 has -9 maintenance instead of -7. Only allows 30% research could you adjust it.

Leif - your Trial4 has -9 maintenance instead of -7. Only allows 30% research could you adjust it.
I shouldn't be in such a hurry when I do this. Let me check it and I'll be right back. Sorry!:blush:

OK, now it is adjusted to be -7 maintenance. Sorry for the delay.

Leif, I'm getting an invalid attachment note when I try to get the file shown above.

Leif, I'm getting an invalid attachment note when I try to get the file shown above.
I had to adjust the file a second time and reattach it. :mischief: Try going out to the SGOTM thread and then go back into our thread and it should download fine. :rolleyes:

OK, here's another test.

OK, Thanks rrau. :goodjob: Got it and off to try another.

I built a save with copper in it and almost made it to the Oracle, missed by 5 turns. However, I was way short on Code of Laws.

OK, here's another test.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Tried your game tested not settling imediately. The Settler popped a hut and got Mining. Had Bronze in 18 more turns and found Copper close to the starting position of the Settler. Founded the city to get the Copper and within 10 turns, was wiped out by marauding Barbs... :rolleyes: Couldn't produce enough units to save myself as I started with a worker. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Guess exploring with the Settler is not a good idea either? :cry: Research is faster though... :lol: :lol: :lol:

I tried leif Trial 4 after adjusting the desert tile to a FP. Here's the 625BC save. The Oracle was just built in a far off place. But I have 3 cities, a library in Kyoto, we're halfway to our first GP, we built Stonehenge (without a chop or marble), I have 8 warriors, 3 axes, and 1 worker. We're researching on Preisthood. I popped a couple of huts, no techs but got 66gold early and later a warrior which came after I lost a warrior to an animal. Barbs killed to date: 6 warriors, 5 archers, 4 animals. While only losing 2 warriors in defense, I disbanded another when we got over the free unit support level. Research is slow, I may play it out until I can get Alpha so I can see how far behind the other AI's we are.

The 625BC save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/GatorSG02_Trial4_BC-0625.Civ4SavedGame)

How does this compare with some of the other test games being played?

EDIT: No close neighbor to attack so not sure which why to proceed. Try pushing research or start some fighting?

How does this compare with some of the other test games being played?
I think you've done pretty well. You've been very disciplined in your research towards the CS slingshot. If you look at your cities, I think it is interesting that the Library in Kyoto didn't do much in itself, but the two Scientists really give a research boost. 6 of the 11 beakers are due to them, 2 are from the Library (25%) and the other three are from the 20% research. It speaks well of getting to Writing.
EDIT: No close neighbor to attack so not sure which why to proceed. Try pushing research or start some fighting?
For fun, go into WorldBuilder and you'll see they are not too much farther south of the warrior, the Mongols and the French.

I think you are now at the time when things start to get harder. We're paying 1 GPT for unit costs, so additional unit costs another gold per turn. We're not conquering anyone on 3 Axes and 8 Warriors! :eek: Karakorum is at 40% culture and protected by Archers. They recently lost Beshbalik to the Barbs. France has Axes and its cities have Archers.

I wonder if we're focusing on the wrong units. Perhaps we should look into Horse Archers? And there are Horses near Tokyo. :hmm:

Gator: That sounds late for the oracle. I've seen it built a lot earlier. As far as research, that's about par for the course from what I've seen. On my test5 I posted I'm at a point of nothing else to do (cats and samurai vs rifles :cry: and I'd need to go after Saladin, the big monster of this game who has defense pacts). Unfortunately, I think this is where we'll end up unless we come up with something different.

For fun, go into WorldBuilder and you'll see they are not too much farther south of the warrior, the Mongols and the French.
lost Beshbalik to the B
I think you are now at the time when things start to get harder.

Once I got Alpha I was able to pull some trades, and I declared on Spain. They took over 3 barb cities and gave me an opportunity to sharpen our axes. I've captured 2 cities, added a Great Scientist to Kyoto, converted to Caste. We have a city with some religion also. I just signed a 10 turn peace deal as I'm building courthouses.

Speaking of the courthouses, I have to wait 4 more turns before I can change governments again, but should I switch and poprush them? Tokoyo's is about to complete on it's own but the other will take some time. I've been keeping cities to help keep the barbs away but it has limited research even more. I want the courthouses to complete in most cities before attacking more.

Here's the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/SGOTM02_Trial4_AD-0395.Civ4SavedGame)

In our real game we need to devise a way to increase research. Getting to Civil Service either thru the Slingshot or without it is key for our game. First research goal should be COL (courthouses) then CS (samuria's).

Speaking of the courthouses, I have to wait 4 more turns before I can change governments again, but should I switch and poprush them?
I don't think it will help too much as:
- Cordoba needs 17 turns before you can poprush as it requires 2 pop and you must grow to do it.
- Toledo needs to have 4 pop and there is only 1 atm. With no food bonuses, you have a while to wait for this.
- Tokyo you can pop rush any time. As it currently requires 13 maintenance per turn, it would at least get you some gold. It only has 4 happiness atm, so for 15 turns, you'll have to be at pop 3.

You'd think, at this late date, the city would have picked up some religion?? Then you'd get 1 happiness from it.

EDIT - I was thinking that we should not change to Caste until we have enough health and happiness to support 3 or more specialists. With our Capital in its crummy position, we should try to retain the ability to poprush stuff as long as possible?
In our real game we need to devise a way to increase research. Getting to Civil Service either thru the Slingshot or without it is key for our game. First research goal should be COL (courthouses) then CS (samuria's).
Yes, research rate is the name of the game, isn't it? The only other way is to use Great People to research for us, if we can generate any? There must be a way to get around this. I'm going to bed to think about it!! :sleep:

Hope Redbad, Bede or Grahamiam pop in and have some good ideas. I'm running out. :blush:

Sorry I took so long to answer, I was playing so could load up your save until a few minutes ago. :mischief:

I'm sorry, I've been trimming windows all weekend. I'll try one of the test games tonight or tomorrow to see what I can do. I'll also try to read some more.

Tonight, I think I'll try a game where after I build the city on the Bronze, I'll build axes and a couple settlers and keep them in town and research to construction, then after I learn that, settle the two more towns (need 4 towns for a palace change) and take the gpt hit while I start on the palace. I'll see if it's better going at it in a completely different direction. *shrugs* May not work, but what we've been doing isn't working either.

Tonight, I think I'll try a game where after I build the city on the Bronze, I'll build axes and a couple settlers and keep them in town and research to construction, then after I learn that, settle the two more towns (need 4 towns for a palace change) and take the gpt hit while I start on the palace. I'll see if it's better going at it in a completely different direction. *shrugs* May not work, but what we've been doing isn't working either.
A Great Engineer would help build a Palace? Could we try to get one and "jump" the palace with it? Also, is there a requirement in the game for 4 towns to move the palace, never have tried before? :hmm:

Those settlers will cost 1 GPT maintenace each.

It will be interesting to see what lies in store around that starting place. Let's see, 2 hills with gold plus Iron would be nice!! :rolleyes:
:lol: :lol: :lol:

It's a building and can be pop rushed. A GE can probably rush it, but I haven't got a GP in any of my tests except in the capital and I don't want to divert research to sailing then take a risk of a barb sinking the ship with it aboard. The game I'm in the middle of said I had to have construction to make the palace, then had to have 4 cities. :mad: Had to go capture a couple more cities from Isabella. I'd been capturing/razing. :rolleyes: I plan to build it in the most populous/productive city I have. I guess I could always make axes and capture a couple cities, but that early in the game, I'm not sure the AI will be close enough to do that easily. ..... I guess I'll find out.

It's a building and can be pop rushed. <snip> I plan to build it in the most populous/productive city I have. I guess I could always make axes and capture a couple cities, but that early in the game, I'm not sure the AI will be close enough to do that easily. ..... I guess I'll find out.
Yes, and capturing ealry cities means paying maintenance on them as well. :rolleyes: Which kills research...

Good luck. This game is full of surprises, and not too many seem to be good ones? :crazyeye:

EDIT - Saves will be available tonight. Please see Alan's post in the maintenance thread. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4372333&postcount=53)

I suggest we hold off on starting until we agree on who will start and what we think we should do? Although a move by the Warrior could be a smart thing to do? :mischief:

I suggest we hold off on starting until we agree on who will start and what we think we should do? Although a move by the Warrior could be a smart thing to do? :mischief:


No rush in starting. There is still too much undecided to begin. We know how to handle the barbs, but we need to find a way to increase research. With our stronger players currently out of pocket (except for Gman) I'm in no hurry to start. We can always play more turns per sets when we start.

I've not tried jumping the Palace, but I think waiting for Construction may be too long of a delay. It'll be interesting to see rrau's results.

It didn't work. :( Can anyone else think of anything else to try?

:devil: We could always declare war on the people we contact with our capital (if it is close enough to someone) and let them capture it for us.

Does anyone know the maintenance formula for city distance?

I'm wondering how far we would need to move the settler towards our capital to reduce the gpt maintenance. In one test I moved the settler 6 tiles (3 turns) and reduced the cost from 7gpt to 6gpt. Disadvantage here is that we are probably moving away from a potentially solid source of copper.

I'm running out of things to try. I see that as our 2nd city grows to size 2 the maintenance cost increases from 7 to 9gpt. So we need to keep it as small as possible until we learn BW and can poprush. Problem is there is not much to poprush. I rushed a settler in a test game which isn't bad if we save it but it kills the economy if we settle a 3rd city.

Ideally we need copper in our initial 9 tiles, but with the expected barb rush we need warriors for defense, so we can't just sit on the settler and warrior until we learn BW. There is not enough time to build 3 or 4 warrior before the rush.

I also popped a hut in a test game with the settler and got 4 barbs. That was an ugly result.

I'm running out of things to try. I see that as our 2nd city grows to size 2 the maintenance cost increases from 7 to 9gpt. So we need to keep it as small as possible until we learn BW and can poprush. Problem is there is not much to poprush. I rushed a settler in a test game which isn't bad if we save it but it kills the economy if we settle a 3rd city.
All these test games are proving to be frustrating, that's for sure. The only thing I can think of is that we might find something near the start that will help us get over some of this. If not, we are condemned to a slow research rate. And I still have not learned how to overcome that.
Do we need to target Alphabet and try to trade out of it, but with what?
Do we rush for Writing and get some scientists going in the capital to speed up research some?
Without Alphabet, early war doesn't do us too much good because we don't get anything out of it and I have found most of the civs can outproduce us.
And how do we conduct an early war when we are so busy trying to defend ourslves from these Raging Barbs?
Can't grow as it ruins the economy?
Is this an accurate summary?? :cry: :cry: :cry:

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

:blush: I just realized you just need 4 towns to move the capital. You don't have to get to construction. I'll attach a trial save if anyone wants to try it. I'm 6 turns from construction and am at war and could afford to keep a big enough city and pop rush a courthouse. Maybe someone else can try it?

I think sevenb is the one that had the correct gpt distance. Had to try several times to get it right

The other is where I'm at currently in the trial

[edit] I usually settle on the copper and it seems that the true barbs don't show up until so many turns after settling. Before that it seems to be just animals. I think I got confucianism this time as there were two coppers and I moved 10-11 turns after BW to settle. Gave me a longer time to research at 100%. I could have gotten oracle, but I purposely delated trying to get CoL first.

And to show the economy after changing the capital

:D This is the first time in one of these trials that Japan's not in last place

And to show the economy after changing the capital

:D This is the first time in one of these trials that Japan's not in last place
This is certainly hopeful!! :goodjob: :thumbsup:

So, we need 4 cities to do this and one of them can be Kyoto? The earlier we can do this, the better.

I have tried your version 7 save and gotten my head handed to me 3 times tonight by Barbs. Dog gone Axes show up before I can get organized!! :rolleyes:

I try some more tomorrow, for now :sleep:

From the tests done so far it sounds like this could be a possible route:
1) Research bronze while warrior/settler scouts.
2) Settle Osaka on top of bronze and start training axes.
3) Research Priest and start on the Oracle in Osaka.
4) Research Writing and slingshot to CoL with the Oracle.

rrau: could you try this in one of your test games?

Advantages: early axes for defense, religion means we have our culture source for expansions, BW gets researched fast (without maintenance for Osaka early on).
Disadvantages: no room for workers until Oracle is built, fewer axes until CoL than we could have hoped for, suboptimal city placement for Osaka.

This is an interesting way to go. Perhaps I will have some time tonight to give it a try. :thumbsup:

The BIG question is what if we don't have a source of Copper? :rolleyes:

And let's not forget a Palace jump!! :rockon:

I'll try it tonight after work.

And let's not forget a Palace jump!! :rockon:
I didn't ;) Only I think we should limit ourselves to 2 cities until we get CoL :)

Wasn't there talk of moving the warrior and posting a screen shot? Perhaps there are three gold hills nearby.... :hmm:

OK. On my tests it (oracle for CoL) seems doable IF: We don't settle the second city until about 10 turns after BW and we settle closer to our capital (maybe explore in the general direction of our capital). I could do it at 6gpt but not at 8gpt.

We need to get the third and fourth cities on line one at a time after CoL and pop rush courthouses as soon as we can while growing the {[edit] Future }capital city and having it make axes. That means capturing barb cities ........ or war.:mischief:

My research path was: mining to bw, myst (start stonehenge in capital - interrupting 2nd workboat), meditation, priesthood (start oracle in Osaka), writing, alphabet and I got CoL at about 25-30% of the research for alphabet. I captured one barb city, then Montezuma asked me nicely to go to war with Julius, who had a town, just perfect and next to Osaka for my fourth town.:D

Benefit to getting CoL, we can trade to keep up in techs for a bit as research is still slow.

I agree, it is doable. I nearly got the Civil Service slingshot in the game I'll post below, missed by 3 or 4 turns!! :rolleyes: In moving as far as I did to get to the Copper, I also experienced only 6 GPT in maintenance.

I nearly lost Osaka however as the site where I settled on the Copper was so poor, that I had to build an Obelisk in order to attain food resources, so no pop rushing. It took a long time to get into a postition to have any effect on anything. I felt like a victim of circumstance, waiting for the RNG to come and ruin my day!! ;)

*grins* It sounds like we have a tentative plan. We'll see if it survives encounter with the enemy now.;)

Wasn't there talk of moving the warrior and posting a screen shot? Perhaps there are three gold hills nearby.... :hmm:
:blush: Forgot the save was posted. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Got so involved with test games... :mischief:

Not sure where to move the warrior now. Since I think the idea is not to settle until we have Bronze Working, I don't know how critical the warrior move is. I satisfied to hold up a little longer to see if Grahamiam or Redbad stick their heads back in.

BTW - In moving the Settler and Warrior pair, I found it helpful to move the Settler first because with 2 moves in tiles with no mountains, forests or jungles, you can see if any animals are in open terrain waiting to gobble up your warrior, and settler. :eek:

I agree. I don't think it's that critical to move the warrior and post it. Let's see what Capt and Gator have to say. Hopefully Grahamian's around, too.

*grins* It sounds like we have a tentative plan. We'll see if it survives encounter with the enemy now.;)
:lol: :lol: :lol: It never does, does it. I mean survives contact with the enemy... :rolleyes:

I don't know about you, but the place the copper was in the test game you provided was so bad that it was nearly impossible to get an Axe out. I think it took me 40 turns and my one warrior fended off at least 6 Archers and a handful of Warriors. The Axe showed up the turn before a Barb Axe wandered in. My hair was standing on end... ;)

I was over there on that test when I discovered BW, but I'd also uncovered the copper by the gold hills. I walked my settler pair back to the other copper since it was a better site - not by much, but it did have some grassland

I missed that other copper all together. :shake: Must have been late... :mischief:

I just tried a straight push for 4 cities and a palace jump. I achieved the jump in 610BC, but am woefully behind in techs (I'm still on Poly). I did poprush the 2nd settler but there was no need to since I didn't want to found the 4th city until I had built up some gold and until my future Palace city was size 2. I also have seen minimial barbs thanks to our aggressive AI. I used leif's Trail4 game. I do not think this is the way to go. Too damaging on the tech pace and I got lucky with the barbs. BTW as of 610BC the Oracle has not been built yet (unless I missed the notification).

Here's the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/SGOTM02_Trial4_BC-0610.Civ4SavedGame) after the palace completed. (I made a few dumb moves which could potentially take a few turns off this date if I had played it better.)

------------------------

As for moving the warrior and settler closer to the capital that will help but it takes us away from a potential copper site and puts the settler in danger of being killed. But I haven't been close to th CS slingshot in any of my tests.

Settling the 2nd city on turn 2, changes Mining from 10 turns to 16 turns. How quickly can BW be researched w/o the 2nd city?

I know we're getting bored with the test games but we are learning alot of useful things. I'm still in no hurry to start and if we are planning to not settle immediately there is no rush to moving the warrior yet.

Let's see if Gman or the Capt has some other ideas. If the CS slingshot is possible that would be great.

As for moving the warrior and settler closer to the capital that will help but it takes us away from a potential copper site and puts the settler in danger of being killed. But I haven't been close to the CS slingshot in any of my tests.

Settling the 2nd city on turn 2, changes Mining from 10 turns to 16 turns. How quickly can BW be researched w/o the 2nd city?

I know we're getting bored with the test games but we are learning alot of useful things. I'm still in no hurry to start and if we are planning to not settle immediately there is no rush to moving the warrior yet.

Let's see if Gman or the Capt has some other ideas. If the CS slingshot is possible that would be great.
I'm not bored, but as with rrau (I think), frustrated is more like it. However, the games are more interesting now that we have, perhaps, seen some light?

The only way I got close to CS slingshot was to start The Oracle in Kyoto as soon as we learn Priesthood. Then research Writing and Code of Laws. It should be close enough to pop-rush it but we have to let Kyoto grow to at least size 6 or maybe 7 to have a chance and than means unhappiness. But we have the food to do so if we have enough Workboats out, so we need to concentrate on them in Kyoto.

I'm on another trial atm, be back in a while.:mischief: :mischief: :mischief:

What is the advantage of CS vs an earlier CoL? With CoL, we begin courts. With CS, we can go for a gov't that gives us a 50% bonus in a capitol that's on a long-lost island. Perhaps, if we go for CoL, start expanding, then build the capitol near the new cities. By the time all that's done, we may be able to self-research CS?

What is the advantage of CS vs an earlier CoL? With CoL, we begin courts. With CS, we can go for a gov't that gives us a 50% bonus in a capitol that's on a long-lost island. Perhaps, if we go for CoL, start expanding, then build the capitol near the new cities. By the time all that's done, we may be able to self-research CS?
You may be right? I think the advantage of the CS slingshot is that it is very expensive and is needed for us to get Samurai. The cost of CS is 1794 beakers. CoL's is 783 beakers.

The other issue is how much time there is to try and build The Oracle in a town that needs to have Axes to even survive? In the game I just played using the strategy Capt outlined above, Osaka was founded in 3160 BC and Priesthood completed in 2200 BC. Iirc, that's about 66 turns. In that time I built 2 Axes and an Obelisk.

So, if we can knock out 3 Axes, it should be possible to build The Oracle and have enough protection. Let me check?

EDIT - I'll try again tomorrow seeking to gain CoL's withg a faster Oracle, maybe?? Well, if it all works out. :)

I've had a run of bad luck on my last few trials - losing Osaka to bad RNG or not finding copper at all. By the time I can research IW, I tend to lose both the Oracle and the settler pair.

What is the advantage of CS vs an earlier CoL? With CoL, we begin courts. With CS, we can go for a gov't that gives us a 50% bonus in a capitol that's on a long-lost island. Perhaps, if we go for CoL, start expanding, then build the capitol near the new cities. By the time all that's done, we may be able to self-research CS?
You have a point. In fact, with this setup, earlier courts may be more beneficial than bureau. 50% of nothing is? :rolleyes: It's not like Kyoto will be all that beneficial to us anyway...
And, like tests have shown, it means much less of a gamble. I had dismissed the CS sling since we haven't made it in any test games.
2 axes fully fortified and with the Japanese 10% Combat1 added should fend off barbs easily. If we have to build an Obelisk first, so be it.
I realize this plan, too, is a gamble. If the RNG gets nasty while we scout, our warrior will be killed by animals before we're 10 turns into the game, which probably will mean plopping down Osaka blindly. Then again, our tests have assured me of one thing; we won't win this sgotm by settling on the first turn ;)

You have a point. In fact, with this setup, earlier courts may be more beneficial than bureau. 50% of nothing is? :rolleyes: It's not like Kyoto will be all that beneficial to us anyway...
Yes, but that is not really the point, imnsho. CS is the key to early Samurai, and fast conquest, which is the objective of the game. The test games also show that once we have Oracle and CoL up and running, it is still Axes against Swords, or worse, Horse Archers, and 4 techs to go until Samurai are even a consideration. We also have to find and conquer Iron! :eek: And, btw, let's not forget about 2 settlers and a Palace jump along with the Courts.
And, like tests have shown, it means much less of a gamble. I had dismissed the CS sling since we haven't made it in any test games.
This is true. However, we have come ohhhhh, so close on several occassions. However, I will admit that it also leaves us in a tough position and CoL's isn't that bad of a place to be.
2 axes fully fortified and with the Japanese 10% Combat1 added should fend off barbs easily. If we have to build an Obelisk first, so be it.
Perhaps, but given our RNG fortunes, this isn't a given. In a couple of test games, Barb Axes show up as our first Axe is born, and on one occassion, it had a combat 2 promotion. Don't know where it came from, but I was praying, really hard!! :D

In another game we were up against The Mongols. There were tense moments when Keshiks started showing up and he declared on us!! :eek: Once we have a Rax, please promote a couple of Axes to Combat2 and the next promotion is Formation. Only then can one breath easier. ;)
I realize this plan, too, is a gamble. If the RNG gets nasty while we scout, our warrior will be killed by animals before we're 10 turns into the game, which probably will mean plopping down Osaka blindly. Then again, our tests have assured me of one thing; we won't win this sgotm by settling on the first turn ;)
If the Warrior dies, so does the Settler because I keep them together. As I think I posted earlier, if one moves the Settler first, most animals can be avoided as the Settler can move out of the way and then be joined by the Warrior. Just don't meet and 2/2 Panthers!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I tried rrau's 7b save last night and it wasn't pretty, but surviving barbs was very easy. I settled on the 1st turn, went Mining -> BW -> Pottery. Had a worker from Osaka build 3 cottages and work the silk forest at size 4. Corruption climbed to -12gpt and it was pretty slow, but with about 6 warriors strategically stationed, I had zero issues with AI's or barbs. Axes came just in time for the barb axes, my CoL sling was very slow (around 700BC) but it was stable. I could probably do a bit better if I tried again. Also, didn't have time to play another start and try to wander till BW. I definitely saw a big negative in terms of research when Osaka was settled (mining went from 10t to 16t) but the extra warriors I was able to build gave me a pretty solid no-barb zone.

I tried rrau's 7b save last night and it wasn't pretty, but surviving barbs was very easy. I settled on the 1st turn, went Mining -> BW -> Pottery. Had a worker from Osaka build 3 cottages and work the silk forest at size 4. Corruption climbed to -12gpt and it was pretty slow, but with about 6 warriors strategically stationed, I had zero issues with AI's or barbs. Axes came just in time for the barb axes, my CoL sling was very slow (around 700BC) but it was stable. I could probably do a bit better if I tried again. Also, didn't have time to play another start and try to wander till BW. I definitely saw a big negative in terms of research when Osaka was settled (mining went from 10t to 16t) but the extra warriors I was able to build gave me a pretty solid no-barb zone.
Sounds like a good test game. And you hit the nail on the head, how to do research and maintain two cities? Research is faster when waiting to settle but risk increases as there is decreased time to prepare defenses.

Hope you get a chance to play with waiting to settle. I think a lot will depend upon how the terrain looks around the Copper tile, if there is one? :D

In my test games, I can't even get close to getting the Oracle if I settle on the first turn. In my games, I see mostly 1000bc to 750BC for the Oracle. The lastest I've seen it is 500bc and I just can't research fast enough to get it started early enough to get it.

Also, if I settle on the first turn AND IF I'm lucky enough to get bronze or iron nearby, I can't get it hooked up due to only having warriors to protect the worker. I don't think we should settle until we learn BW. That way, we at least have a shot at the oracle, and hopefully can settle on some copper. In all my tests, I lose the city if there's not copper and I have to research IW before settling. The barbs just come before I can get an axeman made.

I tried proceeding with a practice game after moving the capital. After investing the time to build a capital, I tend to have a weak military and get declared on and they either bring their friends in, too or as soon as I make peace someone else declares. This doesn't let me build up enough military to make a good offensive push anywhere. A lot of my cities in the rear are dangerously underprotected and vulnerable to sneak attacks.

Maybe we should elect someone to open the save and post the actual screen of the capital? If we're close to land like Redbad has suspected, maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Maybe we need to research sailing and settle the lands near the capital and just use the settler pair to meet people as we walk it back closer to the capital.

I tried proceeding with a practice game after moving the capital. After investing the time to build a capital, I tend to have a weak military and get declared on and they either bring their friends in, too or as soon as I make peace someone else declares.
Yup, same problem here as well. I played one this evening to test the CoL slingshot. No problem picking it up. However, I got surrounded and couldn't build a fourth city to allow a Palace jump. By the time I was ready to fight, it was Axes and Cats against Longbows and Jumbos. :cry: Iron was close by but owned by another civ, who was way superior to me and had friendly relations with my neighbors, who would have joined him. However, I got desperate and adopted their religion and they started giving me techs, Currency and Guilds. :eek: Guess that means I was so far behind, they took pity on me?
Maybe we need to research sailing and settle the lands near the capital and just use the settler pair to meet people as we walk it back closer to the capital.
Something funny is going on in my test games. Whenever Kyoto has a cultural expansion, the borders never go beyond the "fat cross" of 25 tiles? I keep expecting to see if land exists somewhere nearby and never get to see anything, and thus can't sail anywhere to recon. What's up with that? I suppose we need optics or compass or something like that?

Something funny is going on in my test games. Whenever Kyoto has a cultural expansion, the borders never go beyond the "fat cross" of 25 tiles? I keep expecting to see if land exists somewhere nearby and never get to see anything, and thus can't sail anywhere to recon. What's up with that? I suppose we need optics or compass or something like that?

I had that happen in your Trial4 game also.

Question on poprushing courthouses: Do we get the double hammer production bonus if we poprush?

No time to try any test tonight. Too much work.

I don't think cultural boundaries go beyond 2 tiles from the shore. The only way we will be able to sail to found cities nearby is if Gyathaar edited the posted pic of Kyoto (I think he did or we'd see the gold/food values for the most southwest and southeast tiles). I suspect that they MIGHT be coastal tiles and we could sail a galley across there. The only way to know, though is to have someone open the save and post a screenie. If it is, we might need to research sailing then mining then BW or mining then BW then sailing. At this point, I'm hoping that's the case as I don't think it's doable otherwise - or at least I can't think of how to do it:p

Question on poprushing courthouses: Do we get the double hammer production bonus if we poprush?
Only if the number of hammer needed is within a certain range and this is due to rounding errors within the software, iirc.
It is layed out in this post. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3544368&postcount=12)
I don't think cultural boundaries go beyond 2 tiles from the shore.
Then, if we can't see land, or on the third expansion, it remains as it was in the second, there is no land near enough to sail to? That could stink.... :rolleyes:

Only if the number of hammer needed is within a certain range and this is due to rounding errors within the software, iirc.
It is layed out in this post. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3544368&postcount=12)
According to DaveMcW that bug was fixed in patch 1.61 which we all should be playing ;) So double hammers apply.

rrau and leif: Even if we're far behind when we get to Samurais, do you think we could edge ahead in the long run? Maybe switch to a foreign religion like leif did and beg our way up the tech tree until an oportunity arises (Samus in numbers are good against virtually any pre-guns units).
If we only knew who we're up against, we'd know if we could gamble on the CS sling to bring us closer to Samus.

I haven't played test games, but I fear walking the settler/warrior much longer than it takes to research BW...

According to DaveMcW that bug was fixed in patch 1.61 which we all should be playing ;) So double hammers apply.
:blush: See, you learn something, think you have it down and then it all changes on you. :rolleyes: Thanks for the update. :goodjob:
rrau and leif: Even if we're far behind when we get to Samurais, do you think we could edge ahead in the long run? Maybe switch to a foreign religion like leif did and beg our way up the tech tree until an oportunity arises (Samus in numbers are good against virtually any pre-guns units).
If we only knew who we're up against, we'd know if we could gamble on the CS sling to bring us closer to Samus.
It depends upon where the Iron is and how much effort it would take to get it? By researching up the religious chain to get to Priesthood (The Oracle) and CoL, we must ignore Iron Working as it takes too long to research and still get the CoL slingshot. I've found that while I am focused on that mission, the AI are settling all around our single city and, in last night's game, didn't have enough room to settle the three cities needed away from the Capitol to jiump the Palace. So two superior civs, Cyrus to the east and south and Mursa to the north, with ocean to the west, left us in a serious bind.

I have come agree with you that the CS slingshot is too big a gamble and have focused on the CoL sling instead. It is certainly doable but leaves us wondering where the Iron is. Without Iron, we are in serious trouble as it is Axes against the world... :rolleyes:
I haven't played test games, but I fear walking the settler/warrior much longer than it takes to research BW...
No, that is a serious fear. In the first game I played last night, I walked the Warrior/Settler pair into a jungle tile and out of the fog appeared a Bear, who promptly ended that test game. In the second, I popped a hut with the settler and unleashed a Barbarian horde, which ended that game. :cry:

So there are many dangers out there... Time to begin sacrificing the God of the RNG, as I know you are well accustomed... :mischief:

I've seen in one game what would have been samurai/cats vs rifles if I went to war :cry:. I resigned that game.

Barring a revelation from Bede, Grahamiam, Redbad or Brad, it is nearly time to pick our poison and start this game?
:lol: :lol: :lol:

I know the test games have been helpful to me in getting to understand how to survive the Barb Hordes and how to, sort of anyway, overcome the issues of maintenance. I still haven't figured out what will happen after we get CoL's and are able to build Courts to lessen our maintenance costs.

As I see it, we have 3 viable alternatives?
1. Settle at or near the starting point early on in the game. Grow the city and prepare the defenses while looking around for Copper and, perhaps, Iron.

Advantages - we get established and build an Army.

Disadvantages - We may not be able to settle on Copper in time to defend against Barb Axes, despite our larger numbers of Warriors. This method slows research and we may have difficulty getting CoL's through The Oracle.

2. Wait to settle until we have found Copper, hopefully.

Advantages - Speeds research, makes it very likely that we can achieve CoL's from building The Oracle. Ensures we can build Axes to defend our city.

Disadvantages - What if there is no Coipper in sight? We will be in survival mode as we try to build sufficient Axes to maintain our defenses against the Barb Horde. Leaves us woefully short on units and thus a target for agressive civs.

3. Roam towards our capital and wait to settle until we find a source of Copper or Iron.

Advantages - Perhaps the smallest maintenance costs and fastest research?

Disdvantages - Many, no army, no guarantee the settler survives that long, no time to build an Army before Barb Axes come calling. May have to settle close to other civs that will hem us in and restrict our ability to build 3 cities to jump the palace?

Anything I missed? What do you all think?

That pretty well sums up the choices.

I haven't tried the waiting to settle route yet so I may do that tonight.

I'd vote for either 2 or 3. After looking at the starting pic again, it almost looks like there might be more coast to the north of Kyoto (paler blue in the north half of those ocean squares right nest to the FOW). I also want to see if the south west and southeast squares are ocean or coast.

We can maybe start out with option 2 and if after the boarder expansion of the capital, we see land, we can discuss if we want to change strategies. If land's that close, I'd think survival of the settler pair is less critical and might be willing to try walking the pair back towards the capital. (not all the way back, but enough to lessen maintenance and find a good city spot).

If land's that close, we could settle the nearby lands for our armies and settle the settler pair on a good coastal sight with lux/foods/shields for a beachhead for troop landings.

At this point, maybe it's time to choose who's starting us out and have them post some screenies for further discussion? (I'd prefer not to start - I've been having a run of really bad RNG the past couple of days :p)

At this point, maybe it's time to choose who's starting us out and have them post some screenies for further discussion? (I'd prefer not to start - I've been having a run of really bad RNG the past couple of days :p)
I'd only like to wait long enough for a few others to check in with their ideas/opinions. My post above was meant to focus us on starting and see if there are any other tests or angles we think need discussion before we begin.

Who to start, that is a great question? :D
Gator, ideas? :p
And how many turns?;)

Just tried rrau’s Trial7 game for the 1st time. I decided to play it under leif’s Option 2. I waited to settle the city until we discovered Copper. Then settled on top of the copper (plain hill also) so that I did not have to build a worker to hook up the copper. I achieved the Oracle (w/o a poprush) and CoL in 1030BC. I have 2 axes in Osaka, but only the first has seen action and has racked up the promotion in the process of dispatching 30 barbs in defense.

Here’s a quick timeline.

4000BC – do not settle 2nd city
3700BC learn Mining
3490BC Kyoto size 2
3190BC learn BW and revolt (1 turn anarchy)
3130BC Kyoto size 3
3070BC settle Osaka on the copper plain hill / adjust research down (adding 4 turns to research time) / que up an axe
2890BC Kyoto size 4 (may have been turn before)
2830BC learn MYST start on POLY
2620BC stupidly lose a warrior while trying to reach a hut / 2nd workboat hooks up crabs
2590BC Kyoto size 5

Then the surprises started happening :p

2320BC get popup about Hindu spreading to us then realize I was the first to learn POLY :eek: covert (1 turn anarchy) and Osaka has +5cpt now
2290BC start on Priesthood in 9 at 60%
2230BC Osaka’s border expands / Kyoto size 6 (1 not working) / bump sci to 70% at –1gpt
2140BC Osaka size 2 / sci back to 60% still at –1gpt
2020BC learn Priesthood / do some mm and start Oracle build in Osaka (33 turns) / slow research to 40% for WRIT in 29 turns (to matchup better with Oracle build) +3gpt / barb warriors start to appear about now but we have 2 axes & a warrior fortified in Osaka
1120BC learn WRIT set to CoL, reduce sci to 0% since Oracle due in 3 turns
1030BC Oracle completes in Osaka (w/o rush) / we found Conf and learn CoL as our free tech / select POT in 15 turns at 50%

I like this game: I founded 2 religions, the barbs have built a city just to the SW of where our settler started, so I que up a barrack in Osaka with the plan to mass produce some axes and capture our 3rd city w/o even building a worker or a settler. I may play more of this game later but that’s it for tonight.

Here’s the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/sgotmtrial7_BC-1030.Civ4SavedGame).


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Gator_trial7_01.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Gator_trial7_02.jpg

Can we simply use this save as our start to SGOTM02?? :lol: :lol: :lol:

I wish you'd saved your good luck for the actual game... :mischief: :rolleyes:

I am leaning to option 2 as well. It seems to make the most sense, given the start and the conditions of the game.

Although I must admit that I really didn't give option 3 a fair chance.

I am thinking that we should have someone play the first 30 turns and ask them to stop if anything unusual happens. For example, Kyoto grows and reveals land nearby or we discover Bronze and no Copper shows or our Settler pair gets whacked or ........ :rolleyes:

Almost time to :rockon:

I just checked and Bede hasn't been online since the 1st. I was hoping to have him back before we started this. Redbad had indicated he would be away for the first 2 weeks of the game, so that would put his return late next week (not this weekend). If Gman and the Capt are ready I think someone can lead us off. I can play Saturday (possibly tomorrow night) if you want me to take it.

I agree that we should post a few quick pictures and definately stop if anything unexpected is about to happen. If we're sitting on the settler try to explore some first and then find a 75% hill to ride out the wait for copper. In the test game above I was able to push back enough fog that when BW came in I was able to move to the copper and found the city within 4 turns. I'd also try to place the settler in an area that we could found a city if the warrior is hurt and there are more barb animals in the area.

I think we should wait 24 hours for Gman to weigh in if he likes. I think the Capt is pretty much onboard as he suggested option 2, along with rrau, early on.

Perhaps we should PM Bede and see if he is back on line as the PM notification should go to his personal email, no?

I have no problem with Gator starting us out. :thumbsup:

I'm on board or perhaps on deck? [pimp]
On second, thought, I'll be back from my vacation on Saturday, but I'd like to do a test game before I play so better put me towards the back of the roster :)

Option2 sounds good, Gator's start even better :lol: Bet you can't get us to Hinduism first in the actual sgotm, though :p

Maybe the CS sling could be possible anyway? If we pop a hut or two and get lots of gold, we may run deficit sci quite a while. Can't plan on that though, I'm reluctant to popping many huts anyway, but it may be one of the things we'll have to look out for while playing?

Perhaps we should PM Bede and see if he is back on line as the PM notification should go to his personal email, no?
Maybe; my notifications end up in my seriously spammy hotmail inbox. I check in here much more often than to my hotmail account :lol:

Option2 sounds good, Gator's start even better :lol: Bet you can't get us to Hinduism first in the actual sgotm, though :p
:lol: :lol: :lol: "Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time" :lol: :lol: :lol:
Maybe the CS sling could be possible anyway? If we pop a hut or two and get lots of gold, we may run deficit sci quite a while. Can't plan on that though, I'm reluctant to popping many huts anyway, but it may be one of the things we'll have to look out for while playing?
I really wanted to try and get the CS sling but have decided it is not worth losing it. The postion it places us in would be difficult indeed.

Huts are an iffy proposition, imho. I popped one early and got a horde of Barb Warriors, 3 I think. They killed my Warrior and then proceeded to take my town. Not as good as getting Hinduism... :mischief:

Good luck with your trial game. :rockon: It was an eye opener for me... ;)

I'm ready to start whenever.

Looking at gator's game, it seems that he built the oracle in Osaka, which may be a bit iffy in the real game (unless we get enough axes out and about). Is it better to build fishing boats in Kyoto for the fishes, trying to get that pop up to 8, and then pop rushing oracle when we have 120s in the bucket? It can do 3hpt with a citizen, so that means 40T till we have half of the oracle (iirc, it's 240h?)

Of course, with the oracle in Osaka, the GP that will birth there will be greatly helpful, so it's probably best to follow Gator's start and get as many axes out as possible, build oracle, then start expanding.

I'm careful in the test games to try to not let people get unhappy as it really hits us in the economy.

Is it better to build fishing boats in Kyoto for the fishes, trying to get that pop up to 8, and then pop rushing oracle when we have 120s in the bucket? It can do 3hpt with a citizen, so that means 40T till we have half of the oracle (iirc, it's 240h?)
I tried to do this. During the time available, without pop rushing, I was able to build 2 fishing boats, one for Fish and one for Crabs (health) and a Warrior, to allow pop 5 without any unhappiness. Then I had to place The Oracle in the queue and couldn't build any more work boats. When I let the city grow to size 7, the bad health eats up too much food to maintain at 7, so I don't see how 8 is possible? We'd need 2 more work boats, I think, to do it and I don't think there is time to build them.
...get as many axes out as possible, build oracle, then start expanding.
I have found the magic number to be two. Then it is time to switch to Oracle and pray no more than 2 Axes come calling at any one time... ;)

I'm ready to start whenever.

Looking at gator's game, it seems that he built the oracle in Osaka, which may be a bit iffy in the real game (unless we get enough axes out and about). Is it better to build fishing boats in Kyoto for the fishes, trying to get that pop up to 8, and then pop rushing oracle when we have 120s in the bucket? It can do 3hpt with a citizen, so that means 40T till we have half of the oracle (iirc, it's 240h?)

Of course, with the oracle in Osaka, the GP that will birth there will be greatly helpful, so it's probably best to follow Gator's start and get as many axes out as possible, build oracle, then start expanding.

By settling on the copper and not having any improved tiles to protect I was able to just leave the axes fortified in the city as the barbs died attacking. The other advantage of the Oracle in Osaka is that it earned us culture towards the city defense bonus. But that will all depend on wether we can produce enough hammers and there is enough food to grow the city. Which we will know soon because I'm getting ready to start.

Got it (finally :crazyeye: ) I'm planning on 30 turns to start, but will post some shots before completing them all. That should get us to BW and hopefully a near source of copper.

Got it (finally :crazyeye: )
All I can think of to say is:

Good Luck :thumbsup:

Edit - Can't wait to see a screenie or two!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm planning on 30 turns to start, but will post some shots before completing them all. That should get us to BW and hopefully a near source of copper.
Are you playing tonight or tomorrow? 30 is good... :mischief:
But if you manage to get Hinduism, play 40 because you'll be on a wicked good roll!!
:lol: :lol: :lol:

First update (because leif is online and probably dying to see what the game looks like :p )

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Xteam_SG02_001.jpg

First update (because leif is online and probably dying to see what the game looks like :p )
Well, it looks like a substantial land area we're stuck on. Bodes well for finding some precious metals? :D
But that also means company??? :mischief:
To conquer?? :mischief: :mischief:
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Second Update, there is land near Kyoto. I think a detour to Sailing after BW may be in order. With a 2nd productive city near the capital this may indeed bring the CS sligshot into play. I think Kyoto may need to focus on a galley and then poprush a couple of settlers. It will take 2 cities to bring both the stone and the cows to Kyoto, later in the game.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Xteam_SG02_002.jpg

Second Update, there is land near Kyoto. I think a detour to Sailing after BW may be in order. With a 2nd productive city near the capital this may indeed bring the CS sligshot into play. I think Kyoto may need to focus on a galley and then poprush a couple of settlers. It will take 2 cities to bring both the stone and the cows to Kyoto, later in the game.
There isn't a lot of wiggle room in the schedule to get The Oracle, even for CoL. What this land means to me is that our Settler and Warrior are not as critical as in our test games. Are you thinking of not settling to the west? :hmm:

I'd still wait for BW to come in and then use the settler on the copper. What I'm wondering is how much can we advance our research with a quick city on one of those islands.

I'm almost tempted to pause here and give us time to test the potential research and commerce gains. What do you think?

I'm almost tempted to pause here and give us time to test the potential research and commerce gains. What do you think?
A pause never hurts. I would say that settling to the west will do more to slow research than building a city near the capital will to speed it up. So, perhaps a pause and a chance to do some analysis would be a good thing.

Looks like Redbad has Gyathaar pegged? ;) :D :p

I agree. Glad you were online as I played these opening turns. I'll upload the save file, but this is not a passing of the controls :lol:

BTW, there appears to be a river NE of the rice and more land that way.

A pause would be good to run a couple tests would be good.

:goodjob:

Keep up the good work:D

I agree. Glad you were online as I played these opening turns. I'll upload the save file, but this is not a passing of the controls :lol:
Nah, you still have 20 turns to play. However, this opens many more opportunities and we should hash this out a bit. Nice call. :goodjob:
BTW, there appears to be a river NE of the rice and more land that way.
I am wondering who lives there and how long those resources will be available? :rolleyes:

I'd hate to spend time and resources to get a settler and some defense over there only to have a city sitting there upon our arrival. :cry:

I just uploaded the save, so go have a peek.

OK, I'm off to modify a start and see what happens :)

I work tomorrow morning, so don't expect to hear my results until sometime tomorrow afternoon.

I just edited leif's Trial4 to include the 2 islands. Here it is.

I just uploaded the save, so go have a peek.
:hmm: I think you're right. A two-tile and a one-tile island? A city on either will not allow them to use any of the food resources around the capital, nor can they use tiles from one another. The city by the cow could grow enough to give some research value, once we get Animal Husbandry.

The question is whether it is worth the time to go and recon those islands with a work boat before we use it to claim the resources around the capital? I think we must try to see what is there? :drool:

The settler to the west still needs to be used unless we know there is a large land mass near the capital. So, it looks like settling on the Copper is still the best plan, from what we can see. :scan:

I have to go to a family reunion events with my wife's family tomorrow, so I will not be around until Sunday. Good luck with your test game rrau, and I'll try to check in before Sunday if possible. :cheers:

Here's the trial 5 modified.

I plan to try fitting in sailing in a couple different places and see which seems to work better.

Have a safe trip leif. See ya Sunday.

I'm off to bed, I'll try to play with the test game in the morning.

Have a safe trip leif. See ya Sunday.

I'm off to bed, I'll try to play with the test game in the morning.
Thanks. I think I'd rather be playing civ, but, you know how it is!! :mischief:

Me too, time for :sleep:

Good luck with the testing. :thanx:

I tried to get the CS sling with rrau's modified trial #5.
The AI built it in 880 BC, and I was way off cause I tried delaying Osaka even further. CoL was no prob.
Here's my craziest idea so far: we scout until we find an opponent, do a worker steal and then head off to the nearest bronze site. If we could mine a couple of hills around Osaka and only do one axe, we may have a chance at the CS sling.

The only other way I can see us making it, would be to pop huts for ~100 gcs, settle Osaka as soon as we can and build 1 axe --> Oracle there...

I just finished a test using the Trial8 game. Like the Capt I was nowhere close to the CS slingshot, but I did get the CoL sling in a woefully late 610BC. I think the building and rushing of settlers from Kyoto slows our tech pace down too much. The gains from the island cities can't make up for the earlier larger capital.

We need to get to Priesthood as quick as possible to determine where to build the Oracle. As Gman said it takes a pop8 sized Kyoto 40 turns to rush the Oracle (while running a citizen for the +1hammer pt). Osaka can do it in about 45 turns if size 3 with 5hpt. Problem with Osaka is the barb activity sometimes moves you off the more hammer rich tiles.

Research was much faster with only the 2 cities. We should be able to grab those island cities later in the game after we get to CoL. I suggest trying to explore slightly around the islands with the 2nd workboat before hooking up the crabs. But not too long we need the health bonus from the crabs to keep Kyoto growing.

I didn't even sling to CoL, just straight on researched it. Osaka need to be heavy on shields if we should bother with slinging to CoL imhso. I got CoL in 1100 btw, feeding off 42 gold I popped from a hut.
That said, we could build the Oracle in Osaka while we still have some research time left for CoL and get Metal Casting instead? If we don't get it, we'll have cash to continue teching towards Samus.

I don't like the idea of building/rushing the Oracle in Kyoto.

If we're thinking about building a small core around Kyoto initially, I'd pop rush the first work boat as soon as we get BW and let the overflow go to a warrior. Then pop rush another work boat at size 3 and let the city grow back to size 3 before starting settlers.
We'll be too late to get the Oracle there then.

The other option is to concentrate on the main land. Even if we could get the Oracle in Kyoto in such a scenario, I don't like it much, b/c the GL needs to go to Osaka to build the Kong Miao.

In my test game, I didn't get oracle by researching sailing after BW. Research was too slow by building more cities close to Kyoto. In my test game with the best results, I researched mining -> BW -> myst -> meditation -> priesthood -> writing -> alphabet and got the CoL sling halfway through alphabet. I wanted alphabet to start tech trading and to be able to extract techs from civs for peace.

Did you guys see AlanH's post in the maintenance thread? I'm not sure we have enough population in our cities to rush a wonder like that. We'd have to pop a warrior then disband the warrior and let the overflow go into the wonder. It might be possible to get the CS sling that way, though. I'll go test.

OK. I got the CS sling in one trial but not the other. The key is how fast we can research. In one, I missed stonehenge, so could research a lot faster, the other, I was researching a LOT slower. I could have gotten the oracle, but still had 32 turns to research CoL when someone else built the oracle in 800something bc.

[edit] Maybe we could get close to finishing stonehenge and purposefully queue up stuff in front of it so we lose it to get the golds for research?

[edit2] Went back on the second trial and purposefully lost stonehenge and it wasn't enough to increase research enough. Still 17 turns short. The oracle was early in this trial, but late in the second. That might be the reason for the difference.

Research was much faster with only the 2 cities. We should be able to grab those island cities later in the game after we get to CoL. I suggest trying to explore slightly around the islands with the 2nd workboat before hooking up the crabs. But not too long we need the health bonus from the crabs to keep Kyoto growing.
I think we need to be really careful about how many cities we build until we're ready to "jump the palace", if we still plan to do so. We prolly need to evaluate how much land is available near Kyoto to decide whether we can expand there or whether the mainland is our primary expansion site. So I am for a Work Boat recon as soon as we think we can afford to do it. :)

If our primary expansion will be on the mainland, each city we build around Kyoto, which will be hammer poor, will require Courthouses to allow for reasonable maintenance, especially if the palac