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

Yay first in under AlanH! heehee

Fastest conquest... straight up warmongerin, yo. Let's take it to em!

(This one is also for team use)

Current Team Membership

Perugia: Lancing, UK -- GMT
BLubmuz: Vicenza, Italy GMT+01
BrianS: California, USA -- GMT-08
Doom Train: Cyprus -- GMT+02
gustavoghe
Merum: Dallas, Texas, USA -- GMT-06
Sweetacshon: Australia -- GMT+10

I think all Northern Hemisphere times operate daylight saving in summer, not sure about Sweetacshon & gustavogue, if they do it will be around October - April.


Past Members

Dolphan: UK (on BST) -- GMT+01 (lurker - retired)
Goodenuf: BC, Canada -- GMT-08 (lurker - sitting this one out)
Groin Apologist: Lansing, Michigan, USA -- GMT-05
gskur: Chicago, Illinois, USA -- GMT-06 (may join later)

A very big hello to our 2.5 new team members Blubmuz, Sweetacshon and gustavoghe. We now have representation in

Australia
Brazil - maybe
Cyprus
Italy
United Kingdom
United States

gustavogue. I see from your sign up post that you rate yourself noble/monarch. The players in this team are generally happy at noble/prince level in solo and have only played one or two SGs each. So we are helping each other win at Monarch level. With that experience you should fit in here nicely.

You have not played GOTM in any form so just a reminder that no reloading the game is allowed even if we get trashed by the AI.

Blubmuz. I see from your sign up post that you played all the 4OTM games and submitted 3. With that experience you should also fit in here nicely. How did you manage in the Monarch/Emporer games (submitted or not)?

I'm sure you will both find us good company and we will all learn something.

Please read and follow the "team rules" listed in the next post.

1. Ask to be skipped, or play your turns on time. Please don't just go missing in action.
2. Do not automate workers without first discussing with the team.
3. Do not order workers to make a terrain improvement over a forest or jungle, Clear the trees first.
4. Do not use city governors without first discussing with the team or clearly noting in your turn log.
5. If you change production in a city make sure you inform the team and leave any part-completed items on the build queue so all hammers invested can be seen.

6. Do not leave units on goto orders that extend beyond your set of turns. If for some reason this happens, then be sure to inform your team as to what the unit(s) is/are going.
7. Finish all your turns and upload the game saved at the END of the last turn.
8. When it is your turn to play, it is normal to pick the game up within 24 hours of the new save being made available, and to post a new save within 48 hours of that (so 72 hours in total). If you cannot meet the deadline then your team captain may grant you an extension or skip you at his discretion.
9. Only post a "got it" message once you have downloaded the save and actually opened it in the game. It is not unusual for something to happen that prevents the save being opened.
10. Post a turnlog which describes your set of turns. Provide enough information, not only on what you did, but what your intent was for the next few turns. "Where is that galley going?" and "Oops that palace build was actually a pre-build" are not uncommon comments in the threads.

11. Respect your team mates, and demand their respect. Take care of your writing style, accept that people whose first language is not English will use English in a different way than you are used to. Disagree by all means, but don't make it personal, and don't take it personally.
12. SG's are team games. Be a good team member. Post your ideas, argue your corner and encourage and praise your team mates. Don't be afraid to post in your game thread. That is what it's for.
13. The following Game Options (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=126455&d=1147452086) are preferred except Wait at End of Turn which is mandatory.
14. Above all have fun.

The above is based on the guidance from the C-IV SGOTM Reference Thread and copied here so it can be amended to our own needs. Please note that only the guidance is copied here, for the mandatory rules and shortcuts to the submissions page for uploading and the results page for downloading follow these links
C-IV SGOTM Reference Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439)
Games of the Month (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/1st_visit.php#rules)

Definition of Number of turns to Play
1. 10 turns during wartime
2. For every 2 turns at peace you can play 1 optional turn up to a maximum of 15 turns
3. As normal SG convention it is 'good form' to stop early if a key decision coincides with turns 9-15 or you feel your are getting out of your depth but the choice is yours.

Copied from SGOTM 01 05August06

Yay first in under AlanH! heehee
Yah boo. Beat me to it.
Fastest conquest... straight up warmongerin, yo. Let's take it to em!I agree the map parameters are most certainly a warmongers charter.
AI Aggression - YES! - Yeh! let them DoW on us if they dare.
Barbarians - Raging!! - Yeh! forget about fog-busters use barb training to get to 10XP. Raging barbs/no fog busting is also good for delaying the AI recolonising land where we have razed AI cities while we retain only the best for ourselves.

We effectively have 2 settlers in this start with the first city already founded on a one hex island. The second is some distance away so maintenance is eventually going to be a problem even for organised but we can afford to explore a bit to find a really cool spot for the second city (one might be provided in the fog). This could be centred on the land mass and we could move the palace there to get really optimum distance for our core.

One other idea is to spread ourselves to 2 or 3 bases around the globe while we are in peace mode learning all the techs we need so we are ready to choke the more advanced AI when and where the opportunity arises while we make a beeline for Civil Service.

I think we are being encouraged to do this by Gyathaar.

This time story is ready, so i don t have to think about suitable story for spoiler thread:)

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


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

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

Checking in. This looks like a fun start. Welcome to Blubmuz and gustavoghe.

Here is the useful information which reveals that maintenance is going to be a problem right now so the second city had better be a good one!

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.

Blumbuz & gustavoghe. Please post your check in to this thead if you read this....

Final call for the following players who signed up here but have not checked in to their departure lounges, or excused their late arrivals as far as I can tell:....

Fifth Element BLubmutz, gustavoghe
....

If these players are unaccounted for by the end of today, Saturday, their team places may be taken by up by standby players, assigned in order of greatest team need.

Alan originally posted theabove in the maintenance thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4364877&postcount=223).

Here I am :sleep:
better late than never

hello to everyone

what have I to do now?????[pimp]

just to let you know my time zome is GMT +1

eagerly awaiting for news

I've read our team thread, this is my answer to Perugia's questions:

No problems usually in Monarch solo games, and in Emperor i just modify a bit my starting position, after that I usually win (to be honest with some reloading).
I do NOT dare to go over Emperor.

Sorry for be in late, i just back home

Since this is my first SGotM, i need some help about stupid things like:
- where to find the file for DL
- is this the place where a "got it" has to be posted?
- BTW i did not found this thread was open since August 3rd ... what have I to check next SGotM?

beginning to speak about the game:
- what about settle 1 NW? fish + rice + fp = fast growth and we'll immediately (at least with sailing, or we'll have to wait astronomy? - in this case we'll never share them, we'll win before) share our resources with our capital (and viceversa)
- better try a CS slingshot or start researching in BW line and build axes? japan UU is an empowered maceman, so we have to wait this to be warmogering or start soon?
- I suppose we'll have to build a palace in our first or 2nd city, if we wish to keep up with research

Ciao!

Since this is my first SGotM, i need some help about stupid things like:
- where to find the file for DL
- is this the place where a "got it" has to be posted?
- BTW i did not found this thread was open since August 3rd ... what have I to check next SGotM?

- DL here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php)
- UL here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm.php)
- Yes a "got it" is posted when the player whose turn is next has downloaded the file and been able to open the save (just in case it was corrupted). You'll see how this works when we start.
- All I did was keep checking here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=196) until Alan started the SGOTM 02 - Fifth Element thread.

Thanks for your comments on the actual game. I'd like to see what the others have to suggest (and wait until we finish SGOTM 01) before posting again myself.

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.

Blubmuz, I agree that the site 1 NW is a nice looking spot, but given the above, we may want to consider exploring to the east before settling. If we find a good site to the east, we'll save some maintenance by being closer to Kyoto.

Moving the settler to reduce maintenance sounds good if we can find the right location to move to. There may be a gold mine lurking in the fog which will pay the maintenance for us. However, this may be a dumb question but as the minimap is not centred at the moment, How do we know East is closer to Kyoto than West?

Alternatively we could minimise the losses by working water and river to claw back some gold and build cottages as soon as possible. If we can find good sites for 2 or 3 new cities near where our settler is then switching the Palace will help as we will only have Kyoto far from the capital and Kyoto can pay for its own maintenance once it reaches size 3.

Delaying founding the second city is also an option as we effectively can use the settler as a scout as long as it stays close to the warrior.

@Perugia, Interesting question about whether we know East is closer to Kyoto than West. I played around in Worldbuilder and came up with some bits of information -- I'm no expert with this stuff, so somebody else may get better info.

Anyway, I found that -7 maintenance equated to about 35 tiles distance from the capital. I do not know what other factors go into maintenance, but that's where I ended up. By my count, a standard map is 84 tiles across so we're not quite on opposite sides of the globe.

Curiously, when I did this, I found that the minimap put the biggest gap in tiles in between the cities, so that the shortest distance would have been to travel to the edge, ie E in this case. What I found interesting is that it did this even though this resulted in a different east west orientation between the cities than was apparent when you were looking at the whole map in worldbuilder.

Maybe others could mess around with this?

Brian

Great analysis! I think you have answered my question as having the biggest gap shown correctly on the minimap makes sense to avoid the minimap actually "lying" as opposed to being economical with the truth.

If the factors scale, it sounds like for every 5 tiles we can move towards Kyoto we can drop -1 maintenance. The hill looks like a good place to move the warrior for the usual reasons.

Nothing to complain about maintenance costs, but having the settler scouting instead of building barracks, warriors and so on let us loose precious turns of development.
Of course we can delay 2 or 3 turns before settle, since we have a city and so we can research, anyway the spot 1NW is too nice to let and it would be good for our 3rd city.
Otherwise, if we found 1NW, we'll have a good settlers/workers farm, and late a GP farm and we can look for a good production site for our 3rd city.
Maintenance costs will ALWAYS be high, so we'll have to increase our income.

That capital is an handicap, especially considering this other problem: looking better to the "double spot", Kyoto is surrounded by OCEAN, so it can't trade with the mainland until Astronomy.
A big problem, 'cause the lack of luxury res. will let this city in revolt after it reaches size 4, reduced to size 3 when we'll move the Palace.
For sure is better build a warrior first instead of a WB.

@BLubmuz. I don't disagree that a wandering settler loses precious development turns and we definitely have to increase our income. That's why we need to spend 2-3, maybe 4 or 5 turns scouting for a location with better immediate commerce.

There could be an argument for finding metal ie researching mining & bronze working before settling second city but I'm not yet sure if that would be better.

I would have thought build queue for Kyoto should be WB > warrior > WB > WB > WB. As at size 2 there will not be revolt without a garrison. We should include Temple>Granary>Monastery in the queue when we have the techs.

The city will eventually have a lot of revolt so we should target BW so we can use that to pop rush Temple Granary etc in one turn.

We could connect Kyoto to the mainland for trading if we grow enough culture to cross the ocean but that might take longer than researching Astronomy if the ocean is a large one.

With the capital disconnected from the rest of our empire, if we connect cities 2 & 3 by road or river will they be able to share resources or is it "every city for itself" resourcewise?

We need to keep in mind that as soon as we plop down that second city, our research slider will drop down to 40 or 50%, as we start with 0 coin and will be running a significant deficit. This makes our choice of first tech critical, as that tech will be at least partly researched at 100% while we are scouting second city location. Subsequent techs will take longer.

I think we start with Fishing and the Wheel. If we can assume we will find gold, then mining is the obvious first tech. Pottery will also be an important early tech, but offhand I'm not sure about the prereqs.

Has anybody looked at the Peanut thread from SGOTM1? They moved quickly and dominated well before a PA with Gandhi was even possible. Some of their mid-early moves weren't so hot (war with Cyrus), but they did a great job utilizing maces/knights and never got past that era. I can't recall the name of Toku's UU, but isn't it a mace replacement? Should we be gearing for a conquer victory with that unit?

One final thought - aggressive barbs can drive you nuts. As Blubmuz suggests, we don't want to spend too much time scouting, as we need some warriors pronto.

Our UU is a Samurai which is a Maceman (8 1 70 +50% vs melee) with an additional 2 first strikes. This awesome combination means a lot less damage in normal fights and chances of wining 50/50s. We also have free C1 on all units thanks to the aggressive trait and cheapo barracks. Our best bet is to research Civil Service by the Code of Laws route so we can build courthouses in all cites. We could do with Forges as soon as possible to crank out buildings and units.

We are also organised - did you factor this into your worldbuilder analysis?

I think we should attempt an Oracle slingshot aiming for Metal Casting so we can complete forges, granaries, courthouses, barracks, libraries & hopefully monasteries in all cities by the time we learn Machinery & Civil Service. We can rush Civil Service using the Great Prophet we pop from the Oracle. Then let the Samurai loose.

We do indeed start with The Wheel so we know the location of horses and can start Pottery since we know Fishing. Our workers can then spam cottages and roads so we can afford to leave agriculture until we can trade for it.

Mining would be good if we can find gold and we will need it so we can find the copper but I think we can get an earlier benefit by just settling on the gold with a better food situation so pottery seems the best starting tech choice as we need cottages to avoid falling behind in the tech race. Once we have these techs we should start on Mysticism as early as we dare so we can get to Priesthood as early as we can and build the Oracle.

Overall we need the following essential techs (relative costs are shown thus)
edited after post #24 to include Alphabet

a) Pottery (80) > Mining (50) > Bronze Working (120)
b) Mysticism (50) > Meditation (80) > Priesthood (60) > Oracle
c) Mining and Mysticism > Masonry (80) (if we have Marble) > Oracle 1/2 cost
d) Pottery and Priesthood > Writing (120) > Alphabet (300)
e) Bronze Working (120) > Iron Working (200) > metal
f) Code of Laws (350) > Polytheism (100) > Civil Service (800, Great Prophet)
g) Metal Casting (450, Oracle) > Machinery (700)

As this is Monarch we will be lucky to get Civil Service or Machinery as the free Oracle tech and in any case going military mayhem we may as well get Metal Casting immediately so we can construct forges as early as possible so these can be used to build everything else at a 25% discount. We can then head at a leisurely pace towards Iron Working, Code of Laws and Machinery using Axes to obtain Iron if we need to.

Now the city with the Oracle will eventaully pop a Great Prophet that we can use to rush Civil Service as long as we don't have masonry and have meditation, polytheism, priesthood and code of laws.

I could be mistaken, but i thought Samurai was a knight replacement. I hope it's actually the Maceman.

My worldbuilder exercise was done with Toku, so it would take into account the Organized trait.

Regarding essential techs, I don't see Alphabet on these lists. I think we may want to get there early so we can trade for some of these others.

I like idea of using Oracle to get MetalCasting if we can get the Oracle. We'll need to see what our second city site looks like before choosing a tech path, but assuming no marble I'd lean towards something like:

--Pottery, Mining, BW, Myst, Med, Priesthood (start Oracle), Writing, Alphabet

I could be mistaken, but i thought Samurai was a knight replacement. I hope it's actually the Maceman.You've been playing too much CivIII in which iSamurai was a knight replacement that didn't need horses.

Alphabet is indeed essential.

Lurker Comment

*Waves*

Good luck guys, I'll be rooting for you all the way! Give 'em samurai-flavoured hell!

Mmmm, samurai-flavoured hell -- I'm thinking wasabi.

I've created a couple of very rough approximations of the start in worldbuilder. The emphasis is on very rough, as I did not try to exactly re-create the starting position. If you have a chance, please test these out to give us a sense of what it will be like to deal with extra maintenance, and whether that will make it more difficult to get the Oracle.

135041
135042

The save is now available here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) and some teams have started.

Where possible we should all definitely try out BrianS's test saves in order to get a feel for the extra maintenance and whether getting the Oracle is at all possible with this start.

May I suggest that as a parallel activity we download the save and just move the warrior to the hill then post a screenie to assist in the discussion of our initial strategy.


Turn Order & Captaincy

Here is a provisional turn order for the 5 players who have checked in so far. Let me know if this is OK with your vacations, business trips etc by this Friday. At this stage we should play 15 turns each (once we have a plan).

BLubmuz (up)
Doom Train (on deck)
Merum
BrianS
Sweetacshon
Perugia (skip 13 - 27 August)

gustavoghe has not checked in so has to be considered MIA and has not been included on the rota, We therefor have room for up to 3 more players should anyone want to join us later.
From the SGOTM 01 past members, gskur has expressed an interest in rejoining if he can find the time. If he can then we have room.

Please note that I will not have internet access for a 2 week period in August and I started the last game so I have placed myself at the bottom of the list.

BrianS, I hope you can take on the role of Team Captain during this period.

Hi guys. We have a late sign-up - Sweetacshon. It looks as if you are down one player, at five. With vacations fast approaching you may be interested in another player? Are you interested in taking him/her onto your strength?

I'm happy to have another player join us Alan. I'd say bring on Sweetacshon.

Another player is good. I'll send them a pm for good measure.

I've put Blubmuz up first but as this is their first SG it may be better for someone else to go first to show them the ropes.

Anyway can we get some action going. Someone, anyone download the save, post a "got it" and move the warrior onto the hill then post a screenshot please............

OK guys, ready to begin and to play first (don't know how consider this :confused: ).
I'll try a short game with your saves, but now i'm in full GotM9, and if some of you is playing it, knows is not so easy.
Anyway i got the 2 tests made by BrianS (tx) and the official game start (not open yet).
Open the game and move warrior to the hill and then discuss the very early strategy is a good idea, and i wish suggest to move the settler 1NW, too I'm sure no one of us intends settle in place.
How does it works about our "meetings"?
to be sure we don't loose days (especially with Perugia leaving 13th), may i propose to post after a brief game played and with the screen took Friday 07/11?

One last thing to Perugia: may know why your nick is the name of an Italian city?

Here is the ss:

135174

almost no doubt: settle in gl N of sheep.
we'll have to learn all the 3 techs required to improve those tiles, mining first
while building a warrior and then a worker.
This will probably make difficult a CS slingshot, I usually skip some of those techs to achieve it.
Waiting your opinions

Hey guys, thanks for taking me late! You've added an Australian to the ranks (GMT +10). Just a note, I have exams in the nxt fortnight, so may have to skip depending on timing. Sorry.

As for the game, I like the idea of Oracle for metalworking, and GP for CS. Obviously samurai are the key here. The tech queue is good, but it depends on settlement. While 1N of sheep looks good, settling where we are now grabs the fish and rice, and is supreme for cottage spam, and it saves a few precious moves. We could grab pottery early and get the gems and sheep with city 3, maybe NE of gems? Just a thought.

Thanks for making the start and getting a screenie. I tried to mouse-over it but nothing happened! What is the resource we revealed 1E of the sheep giving 2F2C.

Perugia (http://www.diplom.org/Online/maps/Mach1.pdf) is a space on a favourite game of mine called Machiavelli which itself is based on Diplomacy (you may have heard of that if not go to Wiki). The whole point of Machiavelli is to build and empire in and around Renaiisance Italy using the Diplomacy engine augmented with bribery and corruption which has elements similar to the Diplomat unit in Civ1 & 2. If you have enough ducats (gold) you can persuade your opponents units to join your side :crazyeye:.

More about the online version of the game can be found here (http://www.diplom.org/Online/variants3.html)

1E of the sheep is gems.

Hi Sweetacshon. Thanks for your first post and welcome to the team. Blumbuz, thanks for the screenie. I see from Sweetacshon post that the tile I was asking for is GEMS.

There are clearly 2 city sites in this area. The starting location of our settler has fish, rice, FP and is on a river. This will clearly make a good location. The site NW has access to the rice and brings in sheep and gems as well and is on a second river. Both sites have forests that can be chopped.

I am still very unsure whether we should delay founding with our settler at all as the -7 maintenance is going to severely limit our tech growth.

One other possiblilty is to found ON THE GEMS for an immediate TWO EXTRA COMMERCE (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3376024&postcount=5) in the city. Thus reducing the impact on founding on our research rate. This city will produce 4F 2H 4C from founding and thus pay towards its maintenance cost.

We would also get immediate access to the +1 happy faces as soon as we learn mining without the need for a worker or a mine.

The medium-term downside is that we lose the benefit of the gem mine (+1 hammers, +5 commerce) but to offset that we can build a cottage on the tile where we would otherwise have founded the city. As a fully developed town this will make up the difference long term.

OK guys, ready to begin and to play first (don't know how consider this ).. Download the save and make sure it loads into C-IV, then post a "got it" to say it loads and when you expect to play.

Normally we run 24/48 which means post the "got it" within 24Hrs of the last player uploading and then playing and uploading within 48Hrs of that. If that is not possible then ask for a skip stating when you can actually play.

You can take a "time out" within the 48Hrs if a key decision happens or real life issue. You can also just stop and pass the rest of your turn. At the end of your turn you post a turnlog describing what happens and explaining your decisions. You also conclude with a statement that describes what should happen next which is the basis of the short term plan for the next player.

How does it works about our "meetings"?It's all very easy going, we just use the thread and try to reach an agreement on "The Plan". Every now and then someone will summarise the plan (ideally this should be the player up). The captain will often post a plan as well to try and describe the consensus and make "executive decisions" if there are a range of opinions. The "plan" (or lack of a plan) often has long term and short term elements as well as strategic, tactical and MM parts so can get hard to follow.

In whatever form the plan is evolving, the player up is empowered to interpret and follow the plan as they see fit. If the player up goofs or misses something the others will usually point it out later even if it's too late to change! This is the challenging part but does lead to learning and better play......

In order to actually move on, every now and then someone will (anyone should!) summarise the plan, ideally this should be the player up. The captain will often ratify the plan or post an "executive plan" as well to try and describe the consensus and make executive decisions if there are a range of conflicting opinions.

Because of time zones it's impossible to have coherent "meetings" and meet the schedule. For various reasons, some players post a lot more than others so flexibility is the key as is reading ALL the recent posts before and even during actual play.

to be sure we don't loose days (especially with Perugia leaving 13th), may i propose to post after a brief game played and with the screen took Friday 07/11?I agree we should leave a little more time to try the test game and work out what impact Kyoto will have on maintenance and research rate. This should also give time to decide where, when and whether to settle and research path.

You should play your initial turns starting on Friday 11 August.

Settling ON the gems... outrageous!! :)
It's a good idea, but will really depend on whats east of the gems in the fog. I guess we have to decide now whether to wait and go and look, or just settle.

My only concern is giving up the +5 commerce, actually, I suppose it's only giving up 3... that can be so useful after simply building a mine, as opposed to waiting for cottages to mature. OTOH, the current position has no resources inside the cultural boundary, so wouldn't we need to build an obelisk (or other) to take advantage of these? The only real benefit, then, is the desert which gives 1:commerce: more than, say, working the rice. If we did settle 1N of the sheep, we'd have the option of switching between rice, sheep (and gems) to emphasize food or prod'n.

Actually, I think I'm successfully talking myself out of settling in place. I vote for scouting out the area and possibly taking 1Nsheep or gems.

I tried 2 approaches (scouting for a site first game, and settling in spot second game) on test game 2 last night and found the following:

1. I was being somewhat reckless, but I essentially lost both games at around 2500 BC when barbarian archers knocked out my second city site. Apparently, with raging barbarians, there is no dancing around outside our cultural borders for a few hundred years. When you first see the barbs, they go straight for your cities. In the second game, I had 2 warriors defending the city, but they were unable to fend off the barbarian hordes. This has a couple implications: a. We should at least consider going for archery early; b. Early warrior scouting needs be close to the city so the warriors can go back quickly to defend; c. We will need lots of early defenders.

2. Given the above, I'm rethinking the Oracle. It requires a significant commitment of city resources which I think we will need for military instead.

3. It will be a little while before we have a worker. Therefore, we might consider researching Myst first. This will give us the ability to build obelisks early in our second city, which would not otherwise grow its cultural boundaries.

4. Settling the second city site did double the research time. When I settled at a -7 GPT maintenance hit, research slider dropped to 50%. At -6 GPT, research slider dropped to 60%. Settling on gems would help offset this.

Does settling on the gems really help? If we do, our first citizen would be working a 1 coin tile unless something else good really appears out of the fog. So we are still only getting 3 coin. If we settle N of sheep, then we can still work the 2 coin gems (they are within the starting city boundary) with our first citizen, plus the 1 coin from city site for 3 coin. Then, once we have a worker, the gems should be the first improvement. Also, we lose the hammers from the mine if we settle on the gems.

Welcome Sweetacshon! Great to have you on board.

Sweetacshon: Welcome aboard, me droog! ;)

Regarding the settling: I really favor settling across the river, 1N of the sheep. It's coastal, gives us access to all three resources, and who knows what's north of the site. Could be even more gems, or something else. I understand the impact on research, but I think it's a better spot in the long-term.

Once we get mining, we can offset the research hit. Then it's a bit of the old in-out for the rest of the world. :mischief:

We ll need early archery in order to deal with barbarians as BrainS pointed out. If there horses nearby barbarians should't be a problem for long time bu we ll need AH:)

As i see can from the SS Blumbuz moved warrior to hill and settler to 2W of warrior. but Settler has 1 move point left, since in the next turn warrior will move to second hill settler should use its spare move point to head forest tile 1E of its current location. In the next turn let warrior to move next hill, we ll settle 1N of sheep if there is nothing behid that hill...

OK there seems to be agreement to settle 1N of the sheep as long as nowhere better appears out of the fog. We have 3 workable resources and a river plains plus at least 2 forests in the 9 tiles so I don't see any concern in getting culture. Surely we can actually wait for a religious building or library and can forget about an obelisk. Build order will be something like worker > warrior > warrior > warrior

As we have Kyoto we can have more than the normal military in the new city without unit maintenance costs (approx 8 units and we only need one warrior in Kyoto).

The settler can achieve a little scouting for us on its way to the site. This turn it can join the warrior and the following turn move 1N of the gems which will reveal some tiles to the NE before. The warrior should obviously head to the next hill in its next turn and then perhaps circle around the city it will need to stay close to defend while we are building the worker. If both units reveal no new resources Blumbuz can make the final decision about city location on the third turn and move the settler 1W and found on the third turn.

Although the gems gives +2 commerce, the city should work the sheep so it can generate 6 production to pop the worker in 15 turns.

Mining will be learnt in 11 or 12 turns depending on whether we get -7 or -6 maintenance as follows: Research for the first 3 turns will be at 100% science (mining will be due in 8 turns) and provide 30 beakers but then we will take the research hit down to 5 or 6 bpt so moving mining out to 8 or 9 turns for the remaining 45 beakers.

One nice thing about Japan is if our worker has nothing to do cos we don't yet know the techs for our other resources we can build roads into the forest which will help our military and the worker returning to the forest to chop it.

We ll need early archery in order to deal with barbarians as BrainS pointed out. If there horses nearby barbarians should't be a problem for long time bu we ll need AH:)

As i see can from the SS Blumbuz moved warrior to hill and settler to 2W of warrior. but Settler has 1 move point left, since in the next turn warrior will move to second hill settler should use its spare move point to head forest tile 1E of its current location. In the next turn let warrior to move next hill, we ll settle 1N of sheep if there is nothing behid that hill...I missed the settler move this turn, 1E is good as the settler gets the option to move NE or SE from there.

So if we find horses we should research AH and build chariots otherwise archers. Therefore we should go for hunting as it allows AH or Archery. This also makes send on the worker front as mining > AH > Agriculture ties in with the difficulty the worker has in building the improvements 6, 8 & 10 turns AFAIR. That allows more roads to assist our anti-barb campaign.

Blumbuz. A quick reminder you have to play on from the position shown in the SS. You should have saved the game after moving the units. If you did not save just repeat the moves. Don't forget to select a tech to research, it looks like were going for Mining.

So, we all agree to settle 1N of sheep.
Production queue: warrior first, but when we'll reach size 2 switch to worker (I used this in my last GotM ant it pays, you delay the worker only 5 turns and you got an extra coin when you reach size 2).
Mining first, then AH is OK (food bonus + 2 coins from sheep)?
I was forgetting our handicap capital: WB then warrior
When the first warrior is completed, what about our cheap barracks? we can promote warriors with cover, so they got a better chance against archers.

And, yes, Oracle could be a problem unless we get marble, but let's talk about this after my save is posted.

15 turns if i'm not wrong?

I wait for your comments and i'll play tomorrow if i'll get them, plan to post the save saturday.

Ciao to all and a welcome to our new team member.
PS sorry for my poor english, but I hope you can understand me anyway.

@BLumbuz. I think waiting until size 2 for the worker is a bad idea as we will not get an extra coin at size 2 while building the worker as we will want to work the rice which is not on the river.

Whats more any delay in producing the worker potentially delays every improvement the worker makes over the whole game.


Option 1. Worker first. Worker costs 90. We get 4 food and 2 hammers from the city tile and the sheep but eat 2 food giving 90/4=23 turns. We also get 23 coin from the sheep.

Option 2 To grow to size 2 needs 33 food. To do this fastest, we can get 2 food from city and 3 food from rice but eat 2 food so city grows in 33/(2+3-2)=11 turns. The city will also supply 11 hammers from the city towards a warrior but we get no coin except from the city.

At size 2 we get to work the sheep, rice and city tiles and switch to worker so we get 7 food and 2 hammers but eat 4 food giving 90/5=18 turns. We get 18 coin from the sheep.My calculations show it takes 6 turns longer to produce the worker and costs us 11 coin.

That's 6 turns before we have the gem mine = 6 hammers + 30 coin
6 turns before we have the sheep pasture = 12 food + 6 coin
etc
etc
etc

I also think we should start the worker before the warrior, otherwise we will learn even more techs that we can't use. In 17 turns we will know both mining and the wheel so need the worker to start mining and roading.

Yes, 1N of sheep is agreed (unless something is hidden behind the other hill).

Mining first then well need Hunting for AH (BTW AH only give +1C from sheep)

Agree about capital WB then warrior and 15 turns.

Then it's a bit of the old in-out for the rest of the world. :mischief:

Let's not forget the ultra-violence! ;)

I agree with all those build and tech choices. Good one, team! How did you guys go in SGOTM1?

Perugia, you're right about the "rice +(no) coin" so, nothing to complain, worker first.
And of course we'll need hunting for AH.
Only in case warrior on hill SE discovers something interesting i'll discuss the location for Osaka.

We did alright and managed a Diplo win though we weren't the winners that went to Peanut with a Domination. They are top players including Staff members. Its well worth reading their thread.

For instance today I found out that they went for a War Chariot rush on Cathy, just like us, and WC attacks on Moscow went better then we expected because when a unit fights a second time in a turn it gets -20% modifier so that explains why it's good to send in suicide units before the main assault and 2 WCs were good enough to defeat 1 fortified archer.

They also mange the team business in a very effieicent manner.

Let's not forget the ultra-violence! ;)

I agree with all those build and tech choices. Good one, team! How did you guys go in SGOTM1?

You're welcome to viddy our SGOTM1 thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=170318&goto=newpost) now that the game is over.

(You and I are going to get on just fine, I think, although most of the rest of the thread will probably wonder what the hell we're talking about.) ;)

@Perugia: I think that as the skills of our team improve, we'll need to spend a bit less time on between turn planning, and we'll hum along just fine too. For now, It's good for us to discuss our strategies a bit more in depth. If we could have done anything different last game, I would have liked to move along a bit faster(although I know my 4 week jaunt to China didn't help that), but at least we got done in time. :)

The thread that intrigued me was the rat pack, who managed to end up at war with India. Their thread was an interesting read.

I'll have a look at rat pack, thanks for the pointer.

BTW I now had a chance to look at the test saves BrianS made. I was specifically interested in the maintenance cost for Osaka. What I found may be useful.

First I checked that founding in place indeed costs -7 maintenance. On the first map I found I could not move in the right direction because of the ocean but on the second map moving the settler just 1 tile East reduced the cost to -6 maintenance and moving 6 tiles East gave -5 maintenance.

If this is reflected in the actual SGOTM, our plans for moving the settler E look good and our favoured spot should cost -6. We should look to found our third city 4 or 5 tiles further E if at all possible.

On turn 3 the situation is changed, so i need the team opinions:

1 - Start research mining, as planned, move warrior on hill E, as in the ss I posted, settler NW-E
2 - warrior hill SE (more gems and gold, oasis) decided to delay Osaka, settler S-SE
between turns meet Isabella of Spain, a scout coming from north (has to be very close)
3 - warrior S, second oasis ... see ss
135512
at this point Osaka north of sheeps as planned is not the best choice
we got 2 options:
1) settle in the ph S of gold, start with barracks and at s2 switch to worker
2) settle in the "blue circle", start with worker

I decided this settler's move because we loose only 2 turns to settle where planned, but, having some (eventually) better choices, we're ready to them
I've also noticed that is not possible "go around" with the minimap, so probably we are in a "inner sea" map
At this point i'll wait for your opinions until 8PM GMT, after that i'll go for option 1.

Since this is my first SG I hope this is the correct way to proceed.
Is it correct to replicate all the moves (easy, i got notes) starting from the initial save, or save and load this turn?

The last 3 posts (Perugia/Merum/Perugia) are a bit cryptic for me: some explanation is welcome
Another thing: I'll be in vacation from 14 to 19 (not planned before)

BLubmuz

You can save during your turn and load that save later to play the remainder of the turns. No need to finish your turn in one setting. You just can't go back and re-load that save if you've since made some :smoke: moves and want to try something different.

You can also post your save mid-turn if you want people to see the whole situation. It wouldn't be necessary at this point in the game when the screenshots tell all, but later in the game there's more to the picture than a ss can capture.

I'm probably missing something obvious, but why would start a barracks instead of a worker for option 1?

The blue circle city is an unbelievable site. It has 5 resources we can see in the fat cross, and there are still 4 tiles in the fog. Also, it's on fresh water, so it gets a health bonus and no roads will be necessary for trade with other cities on the river (roads will be tough to keep early with raging barbs).

The thing I like about the plains hill is city defense. Also, it allows us to share this resource rich area among a couple cities. But it lacks navigation and the health bonus of the river, so I'd be inclined to go with the blue circle. Also, many of the tiles that will be in the plains hill city are still in the fog. Should we move the settler there to see what he can see?

I like your request for comments with an 8 pm GMT deadline to play your remaining turns. That's a good approach.

BrianS,
thanks for your answer.
Yes, the "blue circle" is a wonderful site, but ph gives +1H/turn and a better defense, as you said, and because of this i'm undecided.
The reason to delay the worker if on ph site is simple:
starting with barracks gives you 3F+2C/turn, with the city growing in 11 turns.
ASA the city grows at size 2, switching to worker give us 4F for build the worker, and a total of 4C/turn, without compt the city tile; also, when the worker builds the mine, we can immediately start to work it and still grow, otherwise we'll have to wait to reach size 2.
this is driving me for option 1, and build our next city in in a tile close to the "blue circle".
If we'll survive to do this, because in the meantime i played a test game, and the barbs are HORDES, starting with warriors, so the barracks would be mandatory to promote warriors with a mix of cover and shock - i guess we'll need no less than 8 units to protect our city and improvements.
also, after mining-H-AH, i suggest to research archery, then BW.
and this is another point for option 1 ... more hammers here.
Oracle, goodbye.

OK, I see your points for option 1. How far along will barracks be when city grows to size 2? Would it make more sense to build another warrior first? I see you ran into the same barbarian problem that I saw, and I just want to make sure we don't lose Osaka - it could easily happen.

I really like the blue circle. The 2 gem mines mean that we should be able to keep research of worker technologies ahead of the workers ability to use them ans this have time to develop other techs that give our cities better things to build. The settler should head there by the fastest route which is NE> NE > found Osaka.

I do not see the benefit of the plains hill as we can't afford to let the barbarians pillage our resources which they will do if we sit tight on top of the hill. We can fortify archers on the hills to stop barbs approaching from that direction using units and terrain that gets a bonus. The forest hill is awesome in this respect.

In fact I think we should restrict our improvements to our side of the river and concentrate our fog busters there we can then intice the barbarians to attack us across the river. Eventually we can found a second city on the other river to take advantage of the sheep and FP we can see there plus whatever is still hidden in the fog and move our hill archers to the other side of that city.

The river can also act as defense against Isabella if she is to the North, while we learn the technologies we want to move over to war mode. She is not to be trusted unless you have her religion.

There are 3 tiles inside the initial culture boundary that we can usefully mine and the hill 1SW of Osaka needs a road+mine to assist unit movement to the SW (we do not want o wast a worker turn moving back there later) so we do not need any other worker technologies for some time (20+ turns) after we produce the first worker. We should time the research of AH accordingly.

We need to health bonus of the river so we can grow the city to its maximum when we go to war. This should be easy if we build a granary and eventaully some farms supported by the food bonus resources of the rice, sheep, flood plains and oasis. Unhappiness does not matter as we should be aiming for LARGE cities as for each 4 pop points we have we can support 1 unit and we will want a large army.

With our worker busy on 3 mines we will have time for some more strategic techs. Writing and alphabet will be good so we can start a Library and trade with the AI which will be good for both Osaka and Kyoto and provide the culture growth.

If we are not going for the Oracle and the chance of one of the early religions we should concentrate on being first to Code of Laws for the free missionary.

It is probably a good idea not to trade with Isabella as it is hard to become her friend so she will be an early target for elimination. We should try to keep just a few friends, preferable not directly adjacent and that are friendly with each other.

As I said we should time completing AH for when our worker has built the three mines and some military roads.

The techs I would like are H, BW, Pottery, AH, CoL, Alphabet. We should then be able to trade for many of the cheaper techs we need so we can build monasteries. DO NOT GET MASONRY.

I'm persuaded by Perugia's analysis and agree that we should go for the blue circle.

I'm persuaded by Perugia's analysis and agree that we should go for the blue circle.

Ok so the consensus is to go for the blue circle. BLumbuz suggests the first build be a worker which is fine by me. This way as the city grows each new citizen has an improved tile to work :).

I would have thought we then need to build at least 2 military units to deal with any barbs that show up and to avoid early AI DoW. Then we can start thinking about more military or buildings. This city is clearly a key science city to get us to machinery and civil service and should pop our initial great people so needs granary>library>courthouse>monasteries>forge (+1 happy from gems).

We need to be careful about barbs and will need some defensive and eventually offensive propmotions so a cheap barracks will be needed at some stage as we don't want to lose Osaka and we will use it for Samurai eventually. If barbs are not a problem we don't need the barracks until later. Hopefully Issabel is close and will help quell the barbs for us.

We should try to get early promotions from animals using the forests to our benefit.

Tech. Of course as well as CoL we need Metal casting on the tech list so we can build the forge (+1 happy gems and +25% hammers).

We can then research IW + Machinery by which time we should have the GP to rush CS. If we don't have iron we will need to use Axes to get some :mad:.

Rice. The tile 1N of the sheep should be reserved for a farm so when we get CS irrigation will be provided to the rice (I think this will work). Otherwise irrigation will need to be planned from the otehr river with a few chops.

Workers, when moving 2 tiles look out for partial build opportunities.

Finally, try not to pay any unit support or supply costs ie build only enough units that our pop can support and place no more than 5 units outside our cultural boundary at any one time unless we are in a major war.

This will be my last post for some time. Good luck everyone :king:.

Chiming in here, I'm not so sure about the blue circle. I see two city sites here, one being our first choice, 1N of the sheep, coastal. The other site could include the two oases and the other gems. It's got floodplains, by the looks of it, and who knows what's on the other side of the river. I'd place that city 1SE of the south gems.

If we do decide to move the palace here, then this would be an extremely productive site with little or no distance maintenance.

If I were playing this game solo, I would break those great resources into two very, very good cities, a fine basis for an empire. 1N of the sheep for commerce/production, and the oasis city for a GP farm with its flood plains. The non-resource tiles can then be used for cottages.

We won't be working the double gem for quite some time anyway, as we'll be focused on growing the city.

Also, moving across the river pushes us toward Izzy, if she's over there. Always good to push as far toward the enemy as possible, denying them the space. It's not worth breaking cities for, but we're not doing that here.

Bottom line for me, is why settle for one great city when you can have two?

This looks like a powerhouse start here, and if we place our cities very well, we could end up with a strong core of 4 or more simply awesome cities. That would put us in a fantastic position for an early conquest.

Regarding barracks as a starting build, I also do this often until a city grows to size 2. If I start with pottery, then it's a granary instead, depending on the city site. You end up getting the worker in about the same number of turns, and you have a good start on the barracks, which you'll need anyway. The barracks can sit in the queue until we're ready to resume it.

After your answers, with lot of doubts, i decided to follow your path, so:

1 - Start research mining, as planned, move warrior on hill E, as in the ss I posted, settler NW-E
2 - warrior hill SE (more gems and gold, oasis) decided to delay Osaka, settler S-SE
between turns meet Isabella of Spain, a scout coming from north (has to be very close)
3 - warrior S, second oasis - break to ask - after your answers, i'll go NE with settler
4 - Osaka founded in 3910BC in the "blue circle" -8 maintenance!!! warrior in ph see gh SE
5 - warrior obtains a map ... damn
6 - warrior NE
7 - warrior NE
8 - kyoto expanded borders reveal, well take a look - warrior E
9 - warrior E
10 - warrior N
11 - warrior N
12 - warrior NW
13 - warrior NE - STONE!!!
14 - warrior W
15 - warrior W

this is the file i submitted: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Fifth_Element_SG002_BC3580_01.Civ4SavedGame
still not convinced of the choice, but we're a team so the majority is right.

As posted before, i'll be in vacation 13 to 19, so good luck everyone.

PS : sorry Merum, your plan was closer to mine, but you did not noticed gold (my mistake, i should activate "show resources").

Sadly, the presence of the unnoticed gold merely reinforces my original thoughts. That would have made two awesome cities.

On the upside, we would have had some peaks in the 1N city (I hate that they're useless in CIV4, should be at least able to mine them) which would have inhibited growth a bit.

Looks like i am next. Got the save loaded it with no problems. Probably i ll start my turns tommorow.

Refreshing the turn order, since it's now almost 3 pages back:

Doom Train (up)
Merum (on deck)
BrianS
Sweetacshon
Perugia (skip 13 - 27 August)
BLubmuz (resting)

Hey guys, I don't wanna be arrogant, but, please, check my spoilers for GotM9, (the second one in the first spoiler thread) and the one in the 2nd spoiler thread.

Paragraph deleted. Please note that GOTM 9 is still in progress. Some of your team may not be eligible to read your spoilers yet, and in any case you should not discuss it outside of the spoiler threads.

In the meatime i've read FE thread for SGotM1 (here and there, of course) and ... not bad, and a good final result, congrats guys.

I hope that to be close to Spain helps with barbs.

Good luck Doom Train, you'll need it.

sorry Alan, simply i do not think my results would be spoiling :blush:
it will not happens again.

Played 4 turns mining completed i staring hunting if you accept.

Turn 1: Moved warrior to NE
Turn 2: Moved warrior to hill N that revealed a lion and sugar.
Turn 3: Lion doesnt intrested in our warrior(moved south) i am not gonna fight him because we cannot risk our only warrior.
Turn 4 : Mining researched...

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/4302/civ4screenshot0000nh9.th.jpg (http://img163.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0000nh9.jpg)

Doom Train,
Hunting is perfect since we need archers ASAP.
And, please, bring that warrior in Osaka.

It comes in my mind only now, but I suppose Spain could be at East, the 2nd scout could NOT be where I saw him (3S Gold hill, roughly) if coming from north.
I gotta learn to take detailed notes, I forget this before :blush:

I suppose that you noticed the land north of Kyoto.
ASA we'll has BW (slavery) we'll have to whip a galley/settler /archer to colonize that land (let's hope not be beat to it).
Not only for resources, but because a city there can share resouces with Kyoto, and, if the map is inner sea as I suppose, consequentially with Osaka and other cities in SE.

Again, good luck :goodjob:

Turn set finished i played 15 turns. I renamed our Warrior to Date Masamune. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_samurai

Turn 1: Moved warrior to NE
Turn 2: Moved warrior to hill N that revealed a lion and sugar.
Turn 3: Lion doesnt intrested in our warrior(moved south) i am not gonna fight him because we cannot risk our only warrior.
Turn 4 : Mining researched. Started Hunting its 15 turns away. Also moved Date to jungle/hill.
Turn 5: Lion is in critical position. I think Date can take him jungle/hill so i fortified him.
Turn 6: Date killed Lion (Just 0.1 damage take taken). Another lion spotted NW of Osaka. Date will scout east with defensive help of forests.
Turn 7: Nothing
Turn 8: Nothing
Turn 9: Work boat completed in Kyoto(i grabbed fish with it) another work boat started.
Turn 10: Nothing
Turn 11: Nothing found in east i don t want to get out of forest to scout further he is danger even in forest so Date is heading back to Osaka.
Turn 12: Worker completed in Osaka. I started mine on Gems N of Osaka. Next warrior...
Turn 13: Nothing
Turn 14: Nothing
Turn 15: Nothing

Science at %50 39g(+1) Hunting 3 turns away.
http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/2388/civ4screenshot0002qa7.th.jpg (http://img63.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0002qa7.jpg)
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/5966/civ4screenshot0003sd3.th.jpg (http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0003sd3.jpg)

Merum (up)
BrianS (on deck)
Sweetacshon
Perugia (skip 13 - 27 August)
BLubmuz (in vacation 13 - 19 August)
Doom Train (resting)

Got it. Probably won't even have time to look til tomorrow.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181982
According to Maintanence thread we can use this exploit to build Wonders...

We were always going to be whipping regardless, but I hadn't thought about wonders in the capital... could be good.

Good TS, Doom.. we really have to avoid losing our defenders :thumbsup:

Speaking of TSs, I have exams until next thurs (24th), so I should probably be skipped until then. I just can't guarantee I'll have time, but I'll check the thread periodically. GL

@Merum - Are you able to play? Just a reminder that it's been 48 hours since you're got it.

IT: Turn science to 60%(-1gpt), Hunting now in 2 rather than 3.
Take Date Masamune off auto-move orders and move him W into the forest, looking for lions.

Turn 2: Hunting comes in, switch to Animal Husbandry. Osaka is growing too slowly, we need the sheep.

Turn 3: The mine is finished, and I bump science to 70%(0). AH now in 12 turns.


Turn 4:
Our Warrior defeats a lion in the northern forest, earning a promotion at the cost of 0.3 health.
Worker moves to the south gems.

Turn 5-8: zzzzz

Turn 9: Warrior in Osaka. start another one. This warrior goes S to fogbusting duties at the border.

Turn 12: Science to 80%(-2), AH in 3. Worker moves to sheep to road then pasture.

Turn 14: Buddhism is founded in a distant land. I'm surprised Izzy didn't get it.

Turn 15: AH comes in, I switch to BW. This can be changed, but I'll take BW over archery any day.
Forest-walking warrior reveals wheat along the river to the SW of Osaka.

Here's the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Fifth_Element_SG002_BC2740_01.Civ4SavedGame).

Sorry it took so long, I've been having some computer issues.

Osaka will grow next turn. He should go on the sheep in anticipation of the farm.
There's a Lion near the warriors, maybe we can get another promo for our south fogbuster.
That wheat-sheep city on the river looks like a nice site.
Hopefully, there will be copper.
I've assigned the worker to build the pasture on the sheep.
Kyoto is unhealthy at 4, but still growing. Make sure to put the workboat on the crab, not fish.

Turn log
Turn 30, 3100 BC: You have discovered Hunting!

Turn 31, 3070 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) (3.60)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: Combat Odds: 2.9%
Turn 31, 3070 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (74/100HP)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (48/100HP)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (22/100HP)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (0/100HP)
Turn 31, 3070 BC: Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 40, 2800 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 41, 2770 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!


I might have miscounted turns and played an extra one. oops.

I've got the save now. Will look it over tonight and play tomorrow.

Initial thought is that we are getting close to the time the warrior/archer barbs appear. These guys are mean on raging barbs and caused me lots of grief in my practice games. I intend to build at least a couple more military units next so that we can survive that onslaught.

The main question is whether to stick with BW started by Merum or switch to archery. I think it's unlikely we'll get lucky enough to see copper in Osaka's fat cross (which is still a small cross and likely to stay that way for awhile since we have no religion and no culture building). Even if copper is somewhat close by, we have a moderately long haul before seeing axes (need to build settler and more warriors to protect it, then go settle and mine copper). My warriors were eaten up by barb archers in practice games, and we'll face a long period of archers before we can make axes. Plus, once we research BW, we'll start seeing axes and we'll have no good defense if copper is not nearby.

For these reasons, I'm inclined to switch to archery. Let me know your thoughts.

Things to keep in mind:

Osaka is producing no culture. We can't use the resources if they're not in the fat cross.
Ideally we should have a settler in mind for when(if) we see copper.We don't want Izzy to get it.
Kyoto probably should be on "Avoid Growth" at 5 until we can get more health resources to it. Either that, or we whip the crap out of it.

There are currently no beakers in Bronze Working with the possible exception of overflow, so it can change without loss. However, I hate researching Archery, a dead end tech that doesn't give much in return. However, with raging barbs I understand it may be a necessity.

Not getting archery seems like a risk. We can't bank on copper being near Osaka. If it's 15 odd turns to BW, (assuming we have a settler ready) and another 8 or so to mine, and then 10 to build an axe (sorry about the numbers) 30-35 turns with no real defence. What about spears or chariots, tho?

Oh, I agree that it's a risk to bypass archery. There's a risk of not getting copper, and as BrianS points out, once we get bronze working, we'll get barb axes, but I'm a risk-taking sort of guy (that can tend to backfire on me from time to time).

I have no issue with changing the research path to Archery. I just can't bring myself to physically do it, which is why I chose BW. If I were playing this alone, I would continue on to BW (Which is due in 11 at current research levels) and try to compensate for the barb defense issues with fogbusting and additional forces.

We can probably have archery in another 6-7 turns past BW. Why couldn't we start building archers then? We'd be able to whip, and we'd also have the location of copper (if there is any) known to us, so that we can prepare to settle it. We can probably also shave 1-2 turns off what we have now in research by going to 100% and city growth at Osaka will give us more gold, thus more beakers.

Merum, I agree that Archery is a dead-end tech, and I can't recall the last time I researched it. Essentially, I'm seeing archery as a 6 turn detour that gets us a little insurance and near term defense. A 6 turn detour doesn't seem huge, especially since we're not in an Oracle race.

I definitely see the benefit in getting BW asap, because we will need copper quickly, it will help us choose next city site and we need to be able to whip in Kyoto. In fact, I would probably research it immediately after Archery.

Maybe I'm being too gun shy given my experience in the practice games. That's why I'm seeking opinions here. I'll go with the consensus.

Well, I'm a risk-taker, and you already know my feelings.

How soon can we get to BW on 100% research?

*sits back and waits for the rest of the team to chime in*

Inherited turn: Osaka will grow in 1 turn, warrior due in 5. Worker is pasturing sheep, and next citizen will go there to grow city more quickly. Kyoto will grow in 4, work boat in 3. Currently has pop of 4 with -1 unhealthiness and capped out happiness. However, I will let Kyoto grow so that we have some unhappy citizens to whip.

After much angst about whether to go with Archery or BW, I decide to go for Archery. It may be chickenhearted, but all I have to say to that is bwaack, bwaack, bwaack. Archery is due in 6.

Also, islands observed N of Kyoto. I will use our next work boat to do some exploring before settling it on the crabs.

Turn 1 2710
Lions and wolves appear from forests to s and w.
New citizen in Osaka is put to work on mines. Will keep him there until pasture is complete. Archery is now due in 4.

Turn 3 2650
IBT, lion attacks western archer.
Kyoto: workboat->workboat. This was a bad choice, and I later changed it to archer.
Workboat is sent N to explore islands

Turn 4 2620
Warrior appears S of Osaka and heads towards city.
Osaka: warrior->barracks for 1 turn, will start archer next turn when archery comes in.
Moving warriors towards city, as onslaught is now expected.

Turn 5 2590
Warrior defeats barb warrior who was about to pillage mine
Archery in, BW started (due in 9)
Osaka: barracks switched to archer

Turn 6 2560
More warriors appear E of Osaka
Our victorious warror last turn is injured, and I promote with shock to aid healing and prepare for next arriving barb warrior

Turn 8 2500
Barb warrior attacks warrior guarding gems. We survive, but more barb warriors appear in the south.

Turn 9 2470
I don't recall asking Herodotus for his opinion:

http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/3892/2470bcof4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Barb warriors continue approaching

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6500/2470bc2mediumwu0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Turn 10 2440
Workboat has finished scouting islands north of Kyoto. Resource rich: stone, cows, clams and whales. But no other lands immediately in site. We will want to get sailing so we can settle these islands and see if they offer more access as their cultures expand. Sailing should be in our future.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2472/2440bcmediumnn2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Turn 11 2410
We survive another barbarian attack

Turn 13 2350
Barbs appear to the N and S of Osaka
Osaka grows to 4 pop, and now all improved tiles are being worked
We had spent our savings on research, and are now at 60%, +2 GPT, with 0 in the bank.

Turn 14 2320
We kill the barbs attacking from the south
Barbs continue to advance from the North, and new barbs appear to the east.
Archer started in Osaka as citizens fear for their safety, and we really do not need another work boat at the moment.

Turn 15 2290
East barb attacks Osaka, and defender prevails
West barb moves onto sheep to pillage. We send in a warrior to attack and win, but are down to .6 health.

I hit enter, and BW is completed. Copper is found east of Osaka. Here is a possible dot map.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2015/2260overviewdotmapbmediummp3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Blue should be our next city. It has copper right next to the city, so no need to wait for cultural boundaries to expand. It also gets us stone, fish and a coastal city. Green may be a good city, although there are still a lot of hidden tiles. What I like about it is that it is on the Osaka river and has horses. We'll also want a city somewhere near the sheep and wheat, but I'd like to see a few more tiles before considering a site.

As to our next tech, I'm leaning towards Pottery for cottages and granaries. We could also consider writing to get open borders (and possibly a religion from a neighbor). We need to get some culture going in Osaka, so a library would help. We could also use sailing to settle around Kyoto, but we may want to go for alphabet first so we can trade for it. However, I note we've only seen one other civ so far, and I believe she will not trade with us unless there is another civ about.

The Save http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Fifth_Element_SG002_BC2260_01.Civ4SavedGame

Turn Log

Here is your Session Turn Log from 2740 BC to 2260 BC:


Turn 43, 2710 BC: Barbarian's Wolf (1.00) vs Fifth Element's Warrior (4.50)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: Combat Odds: 0.0%
Turn 43, 2710 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: (Fortify: +20%)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 38 (62/100HP)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 38 (24/100HP)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 38 (0/100HP)
Turn 43, 2710 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Wolf!

Turn 44, 2680 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) (3.60)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: Combat Odds: 2.9%
Turn 44, 2680 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (74/100HP)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (48/100HP)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (22/100HP)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (0/100HP)
Turn 44, 2680 BC: Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 46, 2620 BC: You have discovered Archery!

Turn 47, 2590 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior (2.20) vs Barbarian's Warrior (2.00)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Combat Odds: 67.8%
Turn 47, 2590 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 19 (81/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (20/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 20 (0/100HP)
Turn 47, 2590 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 49, 2530 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Warrior (2.80)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Combat Odds: 12.0%
Turn 49, 2530 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: (Fortify: +5%)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: (Combat: +25%)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (77/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (54/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (31/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 16 (84/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (8/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 16 (68/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 16 (52/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (0/100HP)
Turn 49, 2530 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 51, 2470 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) (3.70)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: Combat Odds: 1.2%
Turn 51, 2470 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (73/100HP)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (46/100HP)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) is hit for 14 (86/100HP)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (19/100HP)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (0/100HP)
Turn 51, 2470 BC: Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (1.54) vs Fifth Element's Warrior (3.10)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Combat Odds: 0.8%
Turn 52, 2440 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: (Fortify: +20%)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: (Combat: +25%)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (45/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 15 (55/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 15 (40/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (20/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 52, 2440 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 53, 2410 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) (4.10)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Combat Odds: 0.8%
Turn 55, 2350 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: (Fortify: +20%)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (72/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (44/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (16/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (0/100HP)
Turn 55, 2350 BC: Fifth Element's Date Masamune (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 56, 2320 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Osaka!
Turn 56, 2320 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Osaka!
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Warrior (4.20)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Combat Odds: 0.7%
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (Fortify: +25%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (City Defense: +25%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (City Barbarian Defense: +25%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: (River Attack: +25%)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (72/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (44/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (16/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 13 (87/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 13 (74/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 28 (0/100HP)
Turn 56, 2320 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!
Turn 56, 2320 BC: While defending, your Warrior has killed a Barbarian Warrior!

Turn 57, 2290 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Osaka!
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior (2.20) vs Barbarian's Warrior (1.60)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Combat Odds: 79.5%
Turn 57, 2290 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: (Combat: -25%)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 17 (83/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (77/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 17 (66/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (54/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (31/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (8/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 17 (49/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior is hit for 17 (32/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (0/100HP)
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Fifth Element's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!
Turn 57, 2290 BC: Your Warrior has destroyed a Warrior!
Turn 57, 2290 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!

Turn 58, 2260 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Osaka!

And here's the roster. Good luck Sweetacshon!

Merum
BrianS (resting)
Sweetacshon (UP)
Perugia (skip 13 - 27 August)
BLubmuz (in vacation 13 - 19 August)
Doom Train

Sorry guys, no can do, as I said, I have exams til Wednesday, and am trying to avoid distractions til then. If you can wait 4 days or so, fine, but you'd probably want to skip me at this stage.

Blubmuz should be back tomorrow, so I propose we let him take it then, if he can.

Proposed order:

Blubmuz
Sweetacshon (If he can play after Blubmuz)
Perugia (If he's back, else Doom Train picks up and Perugia goes after him)
Doom Train
Merum
BrianS (resting)

Brian, looks like Archery was the correct choice. Good turnset.

Hi guys,
back from Austrian mountains, relaxing vacation :king: , ready to fight.

I've seen you've been busy with barbs, and i agree: the blue spot is good for our next city.

Let me read more carefully your notes, anyway, if you agree, I can play right now.
I will edit this after a better reading of your notes. (i wrote this 09:30PM circa)

I got the save, it's OK.
1) After archer completes, so next turn, do we revolt to slavery? I vote yes.
2) It's OK to research writing? perhaps, but:
- Second choice: sailing (often AI won't trade it, because GLH)
- 3rd choice: Pottery
- An interesting choice could be Mysticism, and try to whip SH in Kyoto,
using the exploit Doom Train linked in his post ... it intrigues me and, at least, we'll have some cash, so maybe this could be my choice, and at this res/rate we need only 7 turns against 14 for writing, and the culture could help, not only the newly founded cities.
4) I would barracks completed after archer, then another archer, then Settler (can be chopped)
5) Worker in the forest NE for a road to our next city and to chop barracks or settler or in the hill to mine, then road?
6) Whip the archer in Kyoto after revolt? or at least when it costs only 1 citizen?
7) Date Masamune ... promote to schock??

Don't forget that if we settle in the "stone island" and we know Masonry, we'll have access to stone and 3H/turn (2 for ph + 1 for S) in that city.

and ... it seems i'll be busy with barbs too ... where is the 7th cavalry :ack: ???

I'll wait for your answers until tomorrow, 06/08/20, 10:00PM GMT, then i'll play.

@Blubmuz

Welcome back, sounds like a great vacation.

I vote yes for revolting to slavery.

The reason I suggested pottery next is that granaries will aid in whipping, plus it lets us build some cottages. On reflection, the cottages will take a while to get up to speed, and our worker will be busy in the short term anyway.

We need to keep in mind however that while we are working 2 gem mines and should be swimming in currency, we are only able to maintain 60% research without running a deficit because of the maintenance penalty. This will get worse when we build our Copper/Stone city as it will also have high maintenance but no additional currency. It would help if we could pop the boundary in Osaka so we could work the gold.

Your suggestion about Mysticism is interesting. It's a win-win, since we get some badly needed money if we don't get SH and it gets us some culture if we do. I'm curious what others think of this.

I'm not sure I'd build the barracks yet in Kyoto. I'm more worried about the number of military units than their strength at the moment. So far, we have not lost any military despite many battles. I'd probably forego the barracks now to get the copper settled asap.

I agree with your suggestion to have the worker start building a road to our next city and through the copper. Once the archer is built in Osaka, we can send the warrior now guarding the city out to protect him.

One thing I learned in my practice games and that I used in my turn set is to make sure you leave more than one military back home to defend the cities. I brought back our far west warrior who was on fog busting duty because I thought we needed him at home, which turned out to be true. The barbs are beelining to Osaka. We needed 2 defenders to keep alive!

I'd probably hold off on promoting Date if possible. We haven't seen any barb archers yet, but I would expect them to start showing up in numbers soon. We may need to promote him to archer defense (I forget what it's called)>

I have some other notes about my previous post:
7) Date can be promoted to both shock and cover, so better do it ASAP
4) agree, let's delay barracks, so when archer completes, revolt to Slavery, then Archer/Barracks or Archer /Settler?, maybe whip?
5) i prefer worker in NE, i'll try this
2) the more i think, the more I like mysticism with SH wipping: simply we have no time for a library in Osaka, we have to build military and settlers; a library in Kyoto can be whipped, and soon produce a GS, so writing could be the only alternative, IMHO

We need that settler ASAP, to hook that copper for Axes, but this will be after my turns.
There's the chance Izzy beat us to copper ... why not target the horses?

>>We need that settler ASAP, to hook that copper for Axes, but this will be after my turns

Don't forget, you can probably whip that settler. We certainly don't want Izzy beating us to the copper.

>>We need that settler ASAP, to hook that copper for Axes, but this will be after my turns

Don't forget, you can probably whip that settler. We certainly don't want Izzy beating us to the copper.

Absolutely. I think it's worth both the whipping and the research cost to whip that settler ASAP and get that copper. Without it, it's going to be a VERY long haul to victory in a warmonger game.

I've seen and agree with your opinions about the settler, my only doubt is:
do we have enough units to contrast barbs?
i'll choose an half-way: finish the archer, revolt, one more archer, then settler, by chop and whip.
I'll try writing, a library with 2 scientists in Kyoto can help research despite the low rate, and can be whipped soon.
BTW looking to the resource-bubbles, we are in southern emisphere with both our cities.

I'll need tons of luck, but ... Remember, always dare (Memento Audere Semper)

Good plan Blubmuz. I agree with your thought to build another archer. It's a mean world!

t01-2260
Writing - Kano Osaka, Jigoro SE, (i renamed those warriors splitting the name of the Judo "inventor"),
Toyota (worker) E for chop, Date prom. S+C N
t02-2230
Revolt to Slavery
Zen (our first archer) fortify on gems N
started a 2nd archer, i want reach size 4 before settler
t03-2200
Zen won>hold, Date won>hill E
whip archer in Kyoto
t04-2170
Date forest E, Zen SW, 2 bw on sight
t05-2140
Jigoro won, hold
t06-2110
Date won, Zen won attacking bw on gems S, first chop done
t07-2080
Toyota+Ippon (2nd archer) NE, to chop and protect, settler started to get the overflow, later switch
t08-2050
Kano attack>won bw in E plains, Zen won
t09-2020
switch archer until size 4, Kano level 5 in Osaka
t10-1990
bw SE, hold
t11-1960
Osaka size 4, switched Settler>Archer
2 bw from S, hold
t12-1930
2nd chop done, 10 turns for settler, whipped
Ippon E sees Spanish borders, Jigoro won, another bw from S
t13-1900
Settler+Ippon E, Zen won, another bw from S, Toyota road, some micromanagement in Kyoto
t14-1870
Settler+Ippon E, hold
t15-1840
Settler+Ippon in place with bw S, first barb archer from S
t16-1810 (not completed)
Tokyo founded, another -9 for maintenance, Ippon won and Izzy was beaten :D (see SS)
Zen gems S
136303

The save is here 136304

"bw" means Barb Warrior, sometime i skip to note when they appeared, waiting the result of the battle (no doubts I won, with promoted and fortified units with defensive bonus)

I started Mysticism this turn, so it can be changed - we are at 30% for break-even. I guess sailing could be a good choice
also started barracks in Tokyo, can be changed
We can sign a ROP with Izzy, it helps relations and maybe we'll can share her religion, we need culture, too.

The 4th work boat can be used to better explore North, Kyoto has no food problems, just let's whip that Library ASAP

Our warriors and archers won all their fights, (8 defending + 2 attacking), now things are going hard, due to barb archers
Almost a nightmare, GotM9 was a promenade, compared to this :eek: and the worse has to come ... let's hook that damn copper ASAP

Yesterday afternoon i've seen Doom Train and Sweetacshon on line, sent a PM hoping for an opinion exhange, but no sign from them (maybe they not noticed it)

Good luck to the next player, he will need it in this doom

I've seen in XML that Seville is the 3rd city of Spain, so Izzy is ready to settle the 4th one, protected by 2 archers.

My guess about the spanish capital was wrong, Madrid MUST be at north, anyway I can't understand how that scout was where I saw him (I mean in the 4th or 5th turn of my first set).

Now our main goal is to keep our 2 continental cities and to keep the worker alive (better loose an improvement than a unit) until we'll get Axes.

At the moment i have no definite opinions about our research path, Sailing could be the best, maybe.

I started the barracks in Tokyo, just to do something, but probably is better an archer.

About the work boat, stupid me :blush: , take it back to the crabs.

Nice turn set Blubmuz. Sweetacshon is out of pocket until Wednesday, so Doomtrain, you're up...

Merum
BrianS
Sweetacshon (skip through 23 August)
Perugia (skip 13 - 27 August)
BLubmuz (resting)
Doom Train (UP)

It looks like the worker is building a road between Osaka and Tokyo. I'd mine the copper first so Tokyo can build some axes while the Osaka/Tokyo road is being built.

I don't think any further exploration can be done N of Kyoto. I explored all that could be reached in my turnset. Until we get a city on one of those islands and start expanding cultural borders, we won't get any further.

We need cash. I don't think we can build another city on the continent until we either get cash or move the palace to the continent. Osaka is a nice capital site, but it takes a lot of hammers to build a palace. What do you think of starting the palace there and just build axes at Tokyo for a while?

Also, we somehow need to expand the cultural boundary at Osaka. Will the borders just expand to the fat cross at some point without culture, or will they stay forever small? Assuming action is required, options are: SH, Library, Obelisk. Our research is so slow now at 30%, we need to take into account research time. Obelisk is quickest but will distract from palace build. SH may be second quickest given research time fro writing, but that is just a guess. OTOH, Mysticism is a bit of a distraction, and writing offers many more advantages. It not only lets us build library, but gets open borders and is on path to alpha. Just musing here - would like some other thoughts.

Thank you for your comments.
As you maybe see in my second post, I admit my mistake about the work boat (perhaps I was catched with our settler or with the barb archer :crazyeye: ).

We already know writing, next I suggest Sailing, or Pottery, Agri or IW.
I'd like to research Alpha, but I doubt Izzy wish to trade techs, unless we have the same religion, and we have not religion at all, for now, nor a coastal city to explore north with galleys or wb to meet another civ.
Agree that Osaka is OK as new capital, but I see this build queue for it:
Archer, Barracks, Axe, Axe, Palace.
For Tokyo I suggest:
Archer, Barracks, Axe, Library, Izzy's culture could be a problem for Tokyo.
For Kyoto I already started a library, what to build next depends by our next research.

My reason for barracks is to promote Axes with CR1, hope they win with some barb, promote to CR2 and start conquer Izzy before she get Longbows.

Your idea about the mine is not bad, but I prefer to have copper in Osaka ASAP, and we'll loose 1 or 2 turns with your method.

To avoid misunderstandings, I started research Myst 'cause i just save and pass, but not a single coin was put on it, as for the barracks in Tokyo, not a single hammer was put, in fact i prefer an archer.

One last thing: about the old question about the place for our first city, I was wrong, Perugia was right, lesson learned ;) .

Got the save. Nice turnset Blumbuz its good to have a player like you in our team...

I ll try to plant fog busters to nearby hills. You ll probably get my first report after i get copper. I agree with Blumbuz s build order but we will need scout to uncover izzy s lands but it can be done when this barb problem is over. As for research Alphabet is best choice since there are other civs may find us by that time for trade, we are gonna crush izzy as soon as we got axes i hope that she doesnt have copper.

I ll start my tunrset tonight or tommorow...

Yesterday afternoon i've seen Doom Train and Sweetacshon on line, sent a PM hoping for an opinion exhange, but no sign from them (maybe they not noticed it)
yes i didn t noticed it. But you can always find me via MSN (adress is in my profile)



Good luck to the next player, he will need it in this doom
I am the doom:)

Blubmuz says: We already know writing, next I suggest Sailing, or Pottery, Agri or IW.

Oops...Monday morning thinking on my part. Good thoughts on the build order. I agree with Merum that it's good to have you on our team!

Oops...Monday morning thinking on my part. Good thoughts on the build order. I agree with Merum that it's good to have you on our team!

Must still be Monday, because Doom Train said that, although I agree with the sentiment. :p

Osaka will not expand until we generate 15 culture. Library is probably the best bet. I hate building obelisks, as they obsolete.

For really quick cash, we could spam axes and attack izzy, pocketing the money for either taking or razing her cities. I've never liked her much anyway. The city north of Tokyo looks like easy pickings for a group of axemen. :mischief: Razing it will give Tokyo some lebensraum, as well.

Oh, if we only had a few axes now, to take down izzy's settler stack. :dreams:

With regard to tech, I'd go for Alphabet, since we can't afford to build new cities anyway, sailing would get us at most a galley that we can't do much with. If we get monopoly on alphabet, we can probably get sailing in trade. We might as well do as much trading as we can early, before we piss everybody in the world off.

For barb control, archers make nice cheap fogbusters. We should sprinkle them around

Late breaking thought: Getting CoL asap would allow us to build courthouses and cut our maintenance costs in half.

Thanks all :beer: ,
only some thoughts:
I've noticed barbs tend to skip fogbusters and beeline for city or improvements, then i'll keep the warriors on forests (+50% defense) and archer on hills (same, 25 for hill +25 for archer ability) and, with the exception of Date, fortified in a forest for centuries, to avoid problems from West, i'll keep them no more than a tile outside the borders.

About Palace: it's mandatory to build, but it NEEDS at least 4 cities to be, so my build queue for Osaka would be:
Archer (already in progress), barracks, Axe, library, Axe, settler, Axe, then Palace.

Why not IW?

@Merum (post after this one):
sold! let's go for Alpha (last but not least, we can produce research in Kyoto), then IW or the fast Agri or Myst

@Doom Train:
please, bear in mind the above, be care, we need all our units, with axes we'll can be more aggressive against barbs (and not only)

And, with missis Merit Ptah, academy or else??? :smoke:

Blubmuz,

My thinking behind going for alpha first is this:

1. Allows us to trade tech with others, and usually the AI doesn't go for it as quickly as humans do, so it's our chance for a monopoly tech.
2. Allows us to continue down the path to code of laws, which will allow us to build courthouses. This will be a huge help to us in cutting our maintenance costs.

Iron working is nice (in fact I'd slot it after alphabet, maybe), but I think we need to be able to trade while we can. Soon enough everybody will be angry with us, and trading will be more difficult.

Agree that alpha is good for leading us to COL, but I wouldn't count on any tech trading based on what we see today. So far, we have met only Izzie, and I believe she will not trade with us unless she has met at least one other civ.

Agree that alpha is good for leading us to COL, but I wouldn't count on any tech trading based on what we see today. So far, we have met only Izzie, and I believe she will not trade with us unless she has met at least one other civ.

Well, fair enough, but she might know another civ. This is a fractal map, so who knows what's next to her.

IMHO, Alpha gets another point:
- I agree (see one of my previous posts) that Izzy will not trade techs, but at least we'll can see what she knows,
- after we'll have conquered :evil: , say, 3 of her cities we'll can sue for peace for some tech

perhaps it's not a priority, but we need it soon or later

Some long term reflection

CoL is a long research, after Alpha better go for IW (to see where iron is) >Mysticism>Agri, then CoL
we can't hope to found Confucianism, just use it for courthouses, but:
if we build the Palace in Osaka, we'll need a ch in Kyoto, and i'll wish to settle both the stone and the cows islands mainly for the sea resources, where a ch is very difficult to build, and who knows what we'll find north and west of Kyoto?

If you agree on the above, better not move the palace, build instead a nice stack of axes/swords, build ch in Osaka and neighbors cities, and a FP in Osaka, that is a powerhouse, and former Spain cities will be our core :evil: :evil:.

Also, don't forget that:
- Kyoto is GS-farm (a pity not be able to build GL in there),
- ASA we'll know Literature, we'll can build HE, probably in Tokyo, since we have a level 5 unit.

I ve finished my turnset. Barbies are tough but i managed to hook up copper without losing any unit or improvement.

Here is a report:

Turn 1: Changed research to Alphabet. Fortified Jigoro.

Turn 2: Jigoro killed barb archer no injuries. Tokyo training archer now.

Turn 3: Jigoro and Date killed barb archers. Toyota started copper mine. Work boat grabbed fish. I switched shift for Jigoro and Kano because jigoro is injured badly.

Turn 4: Archer completed in Osaka(Jin). There is barbie warrior N of Osaka i attacked him with Jin and killed it with no injuries. Moved science slider to %40.

Turn 5: Kano defeated barb archer but he is badly injured.

Turn 6: Jigoro healed so i switched again with Kano.

Turn 7: Nothing but new barbies keep comin

Turn 8: Ippon succesfully defended Tokyo from archer.

Turn 9: Nothing

Turn 10: Copper mine completed road started. Zen attacked barb warrior killed it.

Turn 11: Nothing

Turn 12: Date killed one warrior. Other warrior will likely to attack him next turn so i gave him woodsman promotion.

Turn 13: Date and Jigoro won their battles but they are injured.

Turn 14: Barracks completed in Osaka started library. Archer(Kazuya) competed in Tokyo started barracks. Road to copper competed we have it in Tokyo right now. Worker starting to connect copper to OSAKA.,

Turn 15: I think barbies little furious with us 4 of them appeared in this turn so i pulled back kazuya on copper.

Next player should bring back Date because there are 2 barbies after him.

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/2341/civ4screenshot0000zr6.th.jpg (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0000zr6.jpg)
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5711/civ4screenshot0001ii5.th.jpg (http://img64.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0001ii5.jpg)

Good turnset, DT, you reached our goals :goodjob:

I downladed the official save, to see how KYOTO goes, since you never mentioned it in your post:
unfortunately you forget to whip the library there.

I guess we'll have a big overflow by the whip, what could we build?

@BrianS your post 108:
good thought, we'll can use the overflow for a settler, after that use this technique: when settler is almost completed, start a worker, before it is completed an archer, if we'll yet have sailing a wb, so, ASA we'll know sailing we'll can start a galley, so we'll don't loose production, and we'll save unit maintenance costs (needs some micromanagement, but it's worth)

IMHO next player, in his very first turn has to:
- recall Date (as you said)
- put the archer on the hill E of Date (how he is now)
- whip that ... library in Kyoto, start the 2 scientists and put the city in stagnant grow

ASA we'll have copper in Osaka, switch library to Axe and take the worker on the hill N Tokyo to chop, to hurry barracks or Axe (or both, i don't want compute everything), easily soon we'll see barb axes :eek: .

Good turnset Doom. Also, good suggestions Blubmuz. Can we put overflow of hammers in Kyoto into Research? Another thought, once we have sailing, we are going to want a settler/archer/worker in Kyoto to settle the cow island. So we might want to start teeing those up.

Merum, you're up.

Merum (UP)
BrianS
Sweetacshon (skip through 23 August)
Perugia (skip 13 - 27 August)
BLubmuz
Doom Train (resting)

Got and opened the save. Look and maybe play tomorrow.

Good turns, Doom Train.

Hi folks!

I am back somewhat earlier than I had anticipated due to a car breakdown. The damn thing is firing on only 2-3 cylinders!

The annoying thing is I know it's nothing too serious but the trouble with these new electronic whizz bang cars is to be sure it's fixed right you need a computer and software costing £££££££'s that only a franchised dealer has access too.

In the good old days you could repair ignition problems on the road!

Anyways I will be available to play after Sweetacshon BrianS which will give me some time to catch up with our progress to date.

Hi Perugia, welcome back

sorry for your accident, let's hope it doesn't cost too much.

Not much is happened, we just kept the fort, but you'll see by yourself.

Now that you're back, perhaps we'll can hurry a bit, lookin' at the graph it seems we are one of the most backward teams (for game progress, I mean).

IT
Whip the library in Kyoto down to 1 turn. 42 hammer overflow will go into a settler.
Send Date home via the scenic route to keep him away from the oncoming warriors

Turn 1
I accidentally select worker instead of settler in Kyoto. Sorry about that, but the strategy will still be valid.
Jin is injured from the IBT fight with the warrior, so I give him Drill 2 to help with the second.
Two scientists in Kyoto shaves research time on alphabet down to 19

Turn 2
3 barb attacks, all beaten back by our archers, I near Osaka, 2 at Tokyo. More barbs coming.

Turn 3
zZzzz

Turn 4
Kill another barb, and 3 more show up. One is an archer. sheesh.

Turn 5
Izzy offers open borders, and I agree. She's Cautious with us.

Turn 6
Barbs attack again, S of Osaka. Warrior holds him off the gems.
Izzy has a 2 archer 1 settler stack headed south. If nothing else, it will decrease the spawning spots for barbs

Turn 7
2 more barb victories at Tokyo, and 1 at Osaka. Miraculously, there are no barbs visible now.
Osaka road finished, >axeman in 9. Worker heads back to Tokyo

Turn 8
Worker chopping N of Tokyo. 3 more barbs show up. *shakes head*
Shuffle some units around to meet the barb threat.

Turn 9
Barbs seem to be beelining for Osaka now. Another barb warrior shows up to join the party.

Turn 10
Barbs everywhere. We need some more forces.