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The Game
As Peter The Great, Leader of All the Russias, you are charged with achieving a Diplomatic or Space Victory.

This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, crowded map, at Epic speed, against 17 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Diplomatic or Space victory.

Version
Your team will play this map in Warlords version 2.08, using the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 2.08. This is currently HOF_Mod-2.08.001 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mods/HOF-2.08.008.exe), but we shall use the latest version of the mod as at the start date for the game.

Your start file 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 December 1st.

Here's the starting position - click the image below to see a larger version.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm3_start_small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm3_start_large.jpg)

Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Peter of Russia
Rivals - all the other 17 civs in version 1.61
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Archipelago, low sea level, tropical
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Aggressive
Barbarians - Standard
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing

Notes

Please visit the Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439) to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

BOTH Civilization IV v1.61 and Warlords v.2.08 are supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with your chosen version throughout the game.

Teams will compete for four awards for each version of the game - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.

All teams must play the sponsored variant - awards will be given to teams who achieve Diplomatic or Space victories in the least turns.

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.


Remember, Rule Number 11: Have Fun. :)

Checkin' in

Is anybody else thinking backdoor diplo ? It seems to me like diplo and space are not fair competition.

With 17 civs and no mysticism, we can forget about early religion. Classic warrior/fishing start ? We can turn to wheel/pottery next and go heavy on cottages

blid, my thoughts were for diplo as well as it's just so far before space. Means we'll have to keep a reasonable track of our dealings with the AI between players. That can be hard in SG's as you would well be aware.

It will be interesting though to see how we can get the AI's to vote for us on aggressive AI.

Hello, checking in :)

I was thinking diplo too. Since we're philosophical, this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=157667&page=2) thread should help us in lightbulbing our way through the tree to mass media.

The diplomacy in this game will be tough - but also interesting.

I think Gyathaar put space in the scenario because diplo ain't a reliable victory condition. With aggressive AI on, it is even harder because they start with some hidden negative modifier making them annoyed with you the very time you meet them

Anyway, the fastest way would probably be to vote ourselves out along with some allies votes. With 17 civs on archipelago map, I don't think any AI would get the land advantage necessary to make him a profitable permanent ally. PAs won't change much in the game methinks

IMO, building the great lighthouse should be put high on our priorities. Imagine the potential trade routes we have with all those AIs. Of course, we should be wary of whom we befriend like Kikinit pointed out but still 8 or 9 of them should be enough.

@sooooo : I'm eager to experiment those extreme lightbulbing paths. Should be fun to try once in a while. Hope tech preferences haven't changed with warlords. DaveMcW article was written for vanilla.

I think we need to follow an extreme path whilst we massage the diplo scene to the best of our abilities.

I agree that diplo will be the quickest victory type. Backdoor diplo may even be faster. The only shame to that is we will not be able to use Peter's Great Library UB, which I've always had a soft spot for (but I'll have to settle for use of in a private game).

I still don't have enough to personal experience with 2.08 and the new AI to guage how different the tech rate is. But my initial idea is to secure our starting island, maybe grab a nearby one if it presents itself, and then tech to a superior military position. Ideal timing would be to expand for needed pop right as we start burning great people on the last couple techs (Electricity [Sci, Eng], Radio[Sci, Art], Mass Media[Sci, Art]). Having war allies would be the best idea here. Pick a couple good war-mongering civs and ally them in every battle, so we should get their votes as well as whatever they conquer.

Lurking in the different team threads last time taught me that the teams in the upper echelon are those that stay extremely focused, as well as having a good plan. This team did well in communicating steps along the way before; lets keep that up.

Unfortunately, I am not going to have much time to play around with this in the near future. My cousin (more like little sister, with how close we are) is visiting from the east coast and gets my attention until she flies out on Tuesday. I may get a few moments between now and then, but don't count on anything from me until then.

Following the research of worker techs, alphabet, literature and construction, a straight, sensible beeline to Mass Media would be:

Currency -> Code of Laws -> MC -> CS -> Machinery -> Calendar -> Compass -> Optics -> Astronomy -> Paper -> Printing Press -> Scientific Method -> Physics -> Electricity -> Radio -> Mass Media.

Obviously some of those techs like MC or Calendar can be traded for. That route doesn't include philosophy, which could well be helpful for the pacifism civic. This involves a plan of warring mainly with cats, swords and macemen. Hopefully capturing the pyramids :).

I figure the education -> liberalism route to be a waste of beakers because cities which would build universities could just build obsevatories instead. Yes I know we get half price unis, but I still think we save a load of beakers by ignoring it and we can always build them later once we trade for it.

Sci meth and physics are lightbulbable by scientists. Astronomy is not, because it would get paper or education first (assuming we have CoL) and printing press is possible only if we trade for education. Optics and paper are only available if we trade for philosophy (highly probable), otherwise philosophy will be the tech he/she will prefer. The great library for its scientist points is looking very attractive.

Merchants aren't that useful, but any artists we get from the national epic can be saved because they can get mass media and radio.

I am far from an expert at Backdoor Diplomacy but that definitely seems to be the "way" to target the fastest win.

It strikes me the game will have certain distinct phases.

1. Opening (have to think in terms of chess)
Key factors being
a) Secure land, it will be gobbled up quick so expansion is the key?
=> Prioritise food / hammers taking a hit in science if necessary
or
=> Prioritise key military techs for an early axemen / swordsmen rush

Probably avoid mixing and matching these two but pick one and focus?

b) unlock and build "key" wonders
I would say these are
1. Great Lighthouse
2. Great Library

Lots of nice to have wonders but in a world with lots of industruioius civs they are diversions and unachievable?
1. Pyramids. Nice to have but we will be beaten to it
2. Oracle requires priroitising religious techs which we probably wont
3. Parthenon??

2. Middle game
Here we are identifying and nurturing friends and taking out a few civs to be come dominant in population but not land to assist back door diplomacy. A classic "normal" game mid phase

3. End game.

This is the rush to UN whilst manipulating scores so we have the right unloved opponent in the vote off.

Top of mind thoughts requiring :smoke: detection. I definitely think we need to keep on really debating and agreeing our options as we didn't get this quite right in the middle game last time.

Ralph

Please note I am out of the loop 3rd to 8th December inclusive as I am in the US for the week.

Wonders are going to be really hard with 17 other civs in the game. I think the great lighthouse is pretty risky unless we have stone, even if we beeline to it. The great library was easy to get on vanilla because the AIs ignored alphabet for so long. But with the new warlords patch I read they get it earlier. Will have to investigate that one.

Nice discussion going on :goodjob:
I want to point out a few things :
- The great lighthouse is not accelerated by stone nor marble. The real threat would be industrious civs. But if we focus, it is very doable. The problem is that our capital don't have any hills for production. Only forests to chop. We can either build it in a second city with nice production or just rip our capital bare of forests but I prefer the first option. We just need to research sailing early, build a lighthouse while researching masonry then start buliding the pharos.

- Early sailing is not a bad idea on archipelago maps. I've seen archipelago maps where you can circumnavigate by galley or even workboat if it doesn't meet barbarian galley. I doubt Gyathaar would leave such an option though

- Late artists generate poor beakers for research. Something like 10%-15% of the overall cost of techs like radio and mass media. At this point of the game, golden ages are generally better. But there is an exception for engineers. I think you can rush the UN with a couple of them. In the early game, we should try to get the most of them though

Great Lighthouse will be HUGE for this game. With all 17 civs on the board, not only will we have many cities to trade with, but we will have many GOOD cities to trade with (more opposing civs = more opposing capitals = more larger cities). Our tech route will not take us to Corporation, making The Great Lighthouse even more likeable. The only unlikeable part would be the Great Merchant points, but Merchants can be used for trade routes to burn on research or lightbulbing other techs.

One issue with the direct tech line: military techs will be sorely missing. Macemen will be as good as we get, but they do have a good shelf life so if we tech fast enough we can put them to good use. However, expanding to the required population (would it be worth it to sneak in Biology? perhaps after Mass Media?) for a backdoor domination is going to cramp our research style.

It would be easier to do it with Grenadiers, but that would involve adding in Education -> Gunpowder -> Engineering -> Chemistry

... maybe Rifles instead? Ed -> Gun -> Replaceable Parts
... maybe Cossacks? Ed -> Gun -> Philosophy -> Nationalism -> Mil Trad

So here is the question? Which will be faster: bloating our overhead expenses with a classical age Mace war to expand to the required population while we try to tech merrily along? Or diverging for one of the three gunpowder units, potentially saving beakers in overhead. It's something to think on, and again, I really will not be able to give it the time until tomorrow (after I play Soooo-4, I know -- but we're almost to an immortal level victory there!).

We really will be helped with a strong ally or two: they will be good trading partners, good warmongers so they can take the overhead expenses of too many cities, and their votes will be our votes (ideally). A strategy for this will be nice to think over, but will probably have to wait for an in-depth analysis until we actually get in the game a little bit.

More to come...

My initial thought for using Great People at this game was to horde them and pop them off towards the end of the game. The early thinking behind this is that our tech path requires a middle age war expansion to hit the required population, leaving us large and potentially bloated economically, but large also increases the beaker amount we get for each Great Scientist (formula is AFAIK (1500 + 3*pop)*1.5 for epic spead). We would wait until after researching Scientific Method to get the most out of the Great Library and then start popping scientists on the subsequent techs. Gr. Artists will also be useful, but not nearly as much; their formula is (1000 + 2*pop)*1.5. So we can probably assume ~3000 beakers for a scientist and ~2000 beakers for an Artist. All artists will be worth keeping to

Next step was to check the Great Person preference chart listed here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952). I won't replicate the list because it is quite long. I'm going to assume we have all scientists here for simplicity's sake, but I will go into other types of GP afterwards.

After Scientific Method (5382 beakers on epic), we can pop 2 scientists to research most of Physics (8970 beakers), and then pick up another free Great Scientist. So far so good.

Next tech we need is then Electricity (10090 beakers). This is where the plan falls apart a little: Electricity is #18 on the preference list. Education is #5 and will be accessible for the Great Person to pop at that time. Other potential pitfalls would be Philosophy at #10 and Chemistry at #11. Philo needs Meditation and we are talking about getting it anyway, while Chem needs Engineering which we aren't going for. But Education is still in the way of this strat. If we learn or trade for Education, Electricity would be next at this point.

After Electricity is Radio (13455 beakers). Radio is where things fall apart. It enters the preference list at #45, right below Mining. If we do our streamline tech path and then go to spend a Gr. Sci on Radio, we would need to research Fission (#12), Engineering (#30), Gunpowder (#37) and then Gunpowder would open up Chemistry (#11), Biology (#17), Medicine (#26), Refrigeration (#31) but then we would be free to pop Radio with our Great Scientist.

So obviously Great Scientists are not going to get us there on their own. They definitely will help get us to Physics, and potentially Electricity if we don't mind diverging for Education. What other great people can we use?

Electricity is also poppable with a Great Engineer. However, it is #23 on the Gr. Engineer list, and below techs like Engineering (#8) and Replaceable Parts (#9) so Scientists are a better choice for Electricity. In this game, Great Engineers are probably better settled for their beakers.

Radio is also poppable with Great Artists. Radio is #7 on the Great Artist list, but behind several other techs we will have available. Drama is #2 on the list, and Music is #3. The other potential snag is Monarchy at #5, but as long as we don't research Monotheism or Priesthood we won't have to worry about that. Drama and Music are both cheap techs, and late in the game can either be traded for cheaply or researched in 1 or 2 turns. However, with our rough estimate at 2000 beakers per pop, we would need 6-7 Gr Artists to pop the tech in 1 turn.

Mass Media (8073 beakers) is #6 on the Gr Artist list. (It is also #61 on the Gr Scientist list, so we're not even going to bother.) But it is also the cheapest late-game tech we will be researching.


So if we did plan to burn GPs to get most of our late-game researching, the best use would be to burn scientists until we hit Radio, and then burn Artists on Radio and Mass Media. This will mean picking up Education at some point in the game.

Further questions that come to mind:

What are your thoughts in general in Great People popping late in the game with our bee-line strat?

How worth it will it be to store some Great Artists for late game use on Radio and/or Mass Media? To incorporate them into a larger GPP strategy?

A settle Great Scientist will get 18bpt with Representation and settled in a town with a Library, Observatory, and Academy. If we go for Education, this would be upped to 29.25bpt in the mid/late game. At 18bpt a settled sci would hit 3000bpt in 167 turns, at 29.25bpt it will hit that in 103 turns. With all this in mind, when is the best to settle Gr. Sci? Build academies? To pop with them? To use them for a Golden Age?

How many turns do people propose it will take us from the start of the game to learn Mass Media?


IMO, Leaning heaviliy on GPP research at the end of the game does not seem as strong an end-game strat as first anticipated. But it will still be an important component of our late-game strategy. Because of this, the argument for divering to pick up Education seems to carry more weight. And then if we diverge for Education, do we stop there or do we diverge for Philosophy as well? Liberalism?

Good analysis pindicator. In summary, the only techs we can reliably pick up with GSs are sci meth and physics. Other techs will depend of what other techs we have. I still like the route which avoids education, but we'll wait and see.

Another thing is that we should agree to almost every demand, the only exception possibly being alphabet when we have a monopoly.

The save goes live tonight, so we'd better make a roster and a plan for the first player. If you guys are still happy for me to be leader, then I propose this order:

Kikinit
blid
sooooo
pindicator
Ralph Jackson
Rihiter

So let's download that HoF mod and make a plan for the starting turns!

How about this one:

Move scout north, see if there is much more land up there. If it's a normal continent, start a warrior. If the island consists of just what we can see and not much more, start a settler.

Research fishing then sailing then bronze working.

Sooooo, you've got my vote to continue as the ringleader for this SGOTM. I've also got no problem with starting the game off. I've got the HoF mod installed and can't do too much to screw up on the first 20 turns.

What about scouting E->S to make sure that we aren't missing out on a better resource by moving the settler one tile E? I normally wouldn't suggest moving away from that second clam, but if there's a resource to the fog in the east, then wouldn't it be better to move the settler to grab that resource and leave the far west clam for a second city on that southwest isle?

That's a good point. If there is seafood at the spot 2E, that would be better than the current spot because we save a floodplains.

I like pindicator idea too. Kikin can move the scout and post a screenshot for us (don't forget to save and reload after your move or you'll get skinned :lol: )

Looking at the save, we may well be on a small island and there's a nice production city up north to build the great lighthouse. If it's the case, then barbs are no threat and sooooo idea of settler first is a good option. We can take a small risk by starting on a settler and switch to warrior if there's a threat nearby. In any case, we should switch to workboat the time we discover fishing.

Depending on where to settle and the initial build (settler/no growth or warrior/growth), we should build the workboat using a productive tile or let the city grow to size 2 first then switch to two productive tiles to optimize production/food. I'll let Kikin do the math :p

@sooooo : do we need sailing before bronzeworking ? If we can get the settler before both technologies are discovered, knowing copper location if any would be helpful to determine second city position. We won't be able to start a lighthouse asap but it shouldn't be delayed much


@pindicator: thanks for you analysis. What I think based on your calculations is that artists are not worth the trouble. We'll need drama and/or caste system to spawn them. We may get drama late and I prefer slavery overall since we're not spiritual (can't do emergency civic swaps). I think the earlier I got mass media was in the 1600. There are not much entries in the HOF for warlords but there is a 1500 win on monarch and 1400 on deity (tiny map though). We can use 1500 as a treshold to decide best strategy for great people. Does anyone one know the relation between years and turns on epic speed ?


Philo needs Meditation and we are talking about getting it anyway, while Chem needs Engineering which we aren't going for. But Education is still in the way of this strat. If we learn or trade for Education, Electricity would be next at this point.


Why do we need to research meditation ? If we want to go along the lower tech branch, then we must lock philosophy by not researching nor trading for meditation. I managed to pop machinery with a scientist this way, and the same stand for sea techs (optics and astro). OTOH, we need poly for literature if we want to chase the great library

@sooooo : do we need sailing before bronzeworking ? If we can get the settler before both technologies are discovered, knowing copper location if any would be helpful to determine second city position. We won't be able to start a lighthouse asap but it shouldn't be delayed much

Don't think it makes too much difference. Either order will let us build a galley when we want to if we need to make one to settle our next city.

@blid -- I think you're right about Artists. If we get one or two accidentally along the way we can save them for the late game, but we shouldn't try for them. Since we're philosophical I'm thinking of other ways we can use great people well. A late-game push is obviously out. But what about using Gr. Scientists to pop Astronomy for earlier, quicker Observatories. I'm also thinking that burning a Gr. Sci on Education is a good idea so we can take advantage of cheap Universities and also Oxford.

Concerning Philosophy, somebody proposed a philo deviation. Actually, since we're philosophical already, running pacifism will not give quite as much benefit as if we were not (+50% net increase vs. +100% net). I agree that those should be skipped.

That's a good idea bout those HoF submissions. I'm going to go research those and see if there are any write-ups with their submissions. I haven't nosed around that part of the web site too much.

I took pindicator's advice and moved 1E then 1S. Here's a picture of what it revealed. And I saved :p .

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/SGOTM3-Kikin-001.jpg

The starting position has 5 resources and is IMO better suited to allow for another city placement in the future. If we go 2E we have to plant directly on top of the spices. Calendar is not that far down our research path so we will be able to use the spices eventually. The site 2E seems like it would make our later cities more squeezed up.

I'll wait for a bit of consensus on where to settle before playing. It sure does look like a small island but there are plenty more within easy reach.

I vote to settle in place. There is a nice potential 2nd city spot 3NE of the orange dot that wouldn't be there as nice if we moved to red.

Definitely settle in place, so what about early research path? I presume we agree workboat first here?

Agree on settling in place

Settler/fishing then switch to wrokboat. At this point, IMO the incense/forest/plains should be worked to accelerate the workboat. Any thoughts about that ?

I think we'll need a border expansion in the second city to claim the clam. what about a detour to mysticism for our third tech. I'd rather not have a city without food for too long and prefer the city to start with an obelisk asap.
It would be more clear after Kikin turn, but in case of lack of food in the first ring, the tech order would be :

BW->myst->sailing or
sailing->myst->BW

Whipping can help accelerate a worker or a galley. So I'm in favour of choice 1.

Whilst I'm building a settler, I can work the floodplains or the incense/forest/plains but of course once we switch to a workboat the incense is a clear winner.

This settler first is a bit different to normal. We'd often do a worker first but not settler.

I'm in favour of going for BW->Myst->Sailing.

This settler first is a bit different to normal. We'd often do a worker first but not settler.

In fact, the worker would have nothing to do. No mines, farms, camps, pastures. nada. We would need a worker for the second city or once BW is in to chop. Too bad the spices are not on fresh water. Temporary farms would have been nice

Still no news from the minister of war ?

EDIT : in SGOTM1, geezers had a 1544 AD diplo win. I think I'm gonna read this. Probably a lot to learn there though it was not an archipelago map with 17 aggressive civs, euh sorry 18 aggressive civs

Hmm, we don't know how big our continent is. We want a warrior anyway to excort any potential settler, so should we should start one now? If we are on a peninsula of a larger continent, then we will need an escort. It's nearly always better to build the escort before the settler. Of course if our scout reveals a small island that we can fogbust without needing an excort, we can change to settler.

EDIT: and I like KK's tech order.

Seems like there's a consensus so far about the tech path and the workboat. Only point left is settler vs warrior first.
If we start by a settler and discover a chokepoint north to another landmass, we would convert to warrior and finish settler next.
If we start by a warrior and see we are alone, we loose some turns on the second city and the hammers would be a bit wasted.
This is not big deal, so Kikin can set us off and play it with ear

Fair enough. I'll start a settler and explore our landmass. If it's just an island, I'll try and fogbust with the scout. If it's quite a bit larger then I'll switch to warrior. I'll play 20 turns today.

I loaded the save and of it restarts with the HOF mod. Makes me think, is there any advantage to be gained from the HOF mod? If so, how can we all take advantage of it?

I settled in 4000BC on the floodplains that we found ourselves deposited on in the initial save. Moscow then started working on the floodplains and a settler (due in 38 turns).

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/Civ4ScreenShot0028.jpg

I started us off on Bronze Working as discussed. It's due in 20 so I'll play through until bronze working comes in and then hand it back for discussion and the next player.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/Civ4ScreenShot0029.jpg

I spend a little while exploring and realise that the 'island' is bigger than I had thought it would be. I contemplate switching to warrior but decide to wait until the borders pop so I can work the spices with 2 hammers. The image below is when the borders popped and the build was switched to a warrior but I kept on working the floodplains on the idea that it'll be better to let it grow to size 2 now whilst the warrior is building and then work the spices and FP.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/Civ4ScreenShot0031.jpg

In 3610BC, buddhism was FIADL. I moved the scout from one jungle to another and landed next to a bear :mad: . I thought I took a picture but can't find it so you'll just have to believe me. Not to hard to prove as the scout lost the fight and we are now scoutless :cry: . The bear had the better odds of 68% so it would have been lucky to win.

In 3460BC I met Mao. He approached our borders from the island to the SE. He's the only AI I met during this set.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/Civ4ScreenShot0033.jpg

Moscow grew to size 2 in 3430 and I had to turn off the auto governor and select the spices cell manually. Surely that's always a better cell to work unless you are trying to grow the city at the fastest rate? The warrior is due in 4 turns.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/Civ4ScreenShot0034.jpg

In 3370BC, bronze working completed and I saved the game. I've selected mysticism next and have NOT revolted yet. A revolution will cost 1 turn of anarchy IIRC. Some bronze is available as you can see in the next slide but it's a long walk around to it. Not far by boat though.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/Civ4ScreenShot0036.jpg

Don't forget there is a partially complete settler in the build queue. I think we need to get the settler out asap but we'll need a few warriors on fog busting and protection duties too.

Nice start Kikin. Too bad about the scout but he did unfog a fair amount of land before dying. Anyone feels like converting to a jeweler or something ? This is Sierra Leone or Botswana ?

I thought BW->Myst->Sailing path was to be followed once fishing was in :crazyeye: We won't be building no workboats otherwise. I'm going to start research on fishing and maybe whip the worboat

What do you think about settling right on the stone. That city would have clam and three hills in the first ring. It can live for a while without border expansion and would have rice in the second ring later. This way, we don't need to divert to mysticism. We can do fishing->sailing directly

My plan is to finish the warrior, switch to settler until fishing is done, then switch to workboat. Research is fishing->sailing. I don't think we need myst if we settle on the stone. If you prefer another spot, then we may need mysticism before sailing

I'm in no hurry and wait for the majority to chime in and get a consensus. The critical part of the game is now

Yeah, since we forgot to research fishing, whipping the WB is wise. In fact, it may be better overall.

I think I like the hill 1S of the stone, as it leaves the rice for a more northern city and lets us use the fish. We still don't need mysticism for that. Will draw a dotmap ...

Hmm, OK guys what about going for the pyramids instead of the great lighthouse? Should go very well with our philo trait. We can use the engineer from it to build the great library. If we want that then settling on the stone as blid suggested is the best move to get access to stone asap.

Well, going for the pyramids and TGL seems as strong as the great lighthouse. And more in synergy with our trait.

Settling 1S of the stone gives a city a little bit less productive in the first ring, so I'd prefer the stone for both choices. What about this :

fishing->masonry
warrior->warrior (partial)->workboat whip when fishing is in, finish warrior with overflow and grow back to size 2->finish settler

Second city starts with a workboat then starts the pyramids

After masonry, we can get sailing to go for the copper city.

If you go and read the HOF diplomatic top wins, they all build Pyramids early on. Since we do not plan on researching any government technologies, this could be great.

Bronze Working first may not be all that bad. We need to take advantage of this, now, and whip out the Fishing Boat, grow quick, and then whip out a settler. I like settling on the stone. We save about 12 worker turns in hooking up the resource and there are plenty of trees to help rush the Pyramids with.

Is there any reason not to do an immediate revolt into slavery?

What about this :

fishing->masonry
warrior->warrior (partial)->workboat whip when fishing is in, finish warrior with overflow and grow back to size 2->finish settler

Second city starts with a workboat then starts the pyramids

After masonry, we can get sailing to go for the copper city.

Sounds good to me. I've started whipping workers in high food capitals instead of building them recently in my solo games. So after our two warriors and a settler, I propose the capital builds a second work boat while growing to size 4, then whipping a worker for 2 pop.

We may want to go wheel and pottery before sailing. Not sure.

Ok. Now when we see some terrain around us, lets plan not only 2 of our cities, but at least 5-6 of them. A plan of our empire, which will allow us to create a small and very productive country.

First of all I propose building 3-4 cities, quite close to each other, a heart of the empire.
Second of all we must plan our cities specialization right now - before we build them: 1 GPF, 1-2 ProdC, and the rest should be Sci/CashC.

143667

This is my proposition for the first two cities. Our capital - sci/cashC, and the second one, a ProdC.

p.s. Sorry that I'm not taking part of the discussion about diplomatic victory, reserch patch which will lead to it etc... etc... This is mostly because I don't have any idea about that :D. Like I said before, I'm a typical warmonger, I have never achived a diplomatic victory in my life ;].

One more thing. I've got a serious problem with my Civ4:Warlords with mode HOF-2.08.002. When I'm trying to use that mode ( by changing a line in the ini file, or by loading the mode from inside the game, doesn't metters ) this kind of stuff pops up...
143668
...and I don't know how to avoid it.
Any ideas or sugestions?

@Rihiter : in the early game, speed has huge impact because of the exponential snowball effect.
If we don't settle on the stone, we'll have to quarry the stone and road it, which slows us down and means we need to research wheel first. That is a lot of wasted time, where we could have a head start on pyramids. Getting the pyramids is worth loosing the fish, methinks

If we research sailing, we can connect our cities without roads and have the additional 2 coins from trade routes. We can research wheel and pottery next, while we are building a galley and settler for the third city (hopefully the copper one)

I don't have access to the gimp/photoshop right now, but I like these cities:

on the stone
1S of the cows
2N of the cows
1E of the clams
1SW of the eastern rice
something near the copper

sooooo, I've plotted up your cities for us to have a look at. I think we need to explore around the copper a bit more to see if we can put an earlier city there. We cannot be sure that there isn't an AI on the extension of this island that we cannot yet see.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f298/scwally/SGOTM3/SooooosDotmap.jpg

One more thing. I've got a serious problem with my Civ4:Warlords with mode HOF-2.08.002. When I'm trying to use that mode ( by changing a line in the ini file, or by loading the mode from inside the game, doesn't metters ) this kind of stuff pops up...
143668
...and I don't know how to avoid it.
Any ideas or sugestions?

Rihiter, you'll have to go check the HOF forums and ask around there.

EDIT: Rihiter, had you patched your Warlords to 2.08 before you installed the HOF mod?

Sounds good to me. I've started whipping workers in high food capitals instead of building them recently in my solo games. So after our two warriors and a settler, I propose the capital builds a second work boat while growing to size 4, then whipping a worker for 2 pop.

We may want to go wheel and pottery before sailing. Not sure.

I think if we are serious about the Pyramids, we have to build the settler before worker. Remember, we have 17 opponents out there, many of which are probably industrial, and a few that may even have stone. Work boats will dramatically increase the settler's production time and get our second city up quicker; workers won't help get that settler out much faster unless we chop all our forests.

I think if we are serious about the Pyramids, we have to build the settler before worker. Remember, we have 17 opponents out there, many of which are probably industrial, and a few that may even have stone. Work boats will dramatically increase the settler's production time and get our second city up quicker; workers won't help get that settler out much faster unless we chop all our forests.


I think sooooo mentioned this order : warrior->workboat->warrior->settler->work boat->worker so you probably agree on the build plan

If no one contests this, I would go with this plan tomorrow. I would play until masonry is done so we can discuss what tech we go for next

Kikinit: nice photoshop skillz :) But you missed out a city 2N of the cows. Green dot doesn't need the cows - it can use the fish.

About wonders... we must plan them right now, before we build cities or enything else.

What about Great Wall? Why don't you mention this one at all. We have stone, we can have this wonder in no time ( choping 2-3 forest and it's almost done ). Maybe it doesn't gives a big direct bonus but it gives +2 great engenere. If we could manage to chope ( becaus we will have to do some serious choping - in my opinion ) both: GW and Pyramids we will have +4 great engenere... I don't have to tell yuu what kind of new possiblities it gives to uss.
I know... it'll be risky ( 17 civs... indoustrious ones... etc etc... ) but I'm talking about massive choping fore those two wonders, and then +4GE... mmm ...
With this we can think about other, great patchs ( with building something with that early engenere )... Parthenon, or maybe Temple of Arthemis, or Great Lighthouse without any problem ( I think we will build it without any problems even without that engenere )... and more.

About plan with massive choping around the capital ( where we can chop those two GEng. wonders ). We could chop all those forest, and then cottage them all ( to meake our capital a Sci/Cash City ) or farm it all to make a nice GPF. Both those ways needs to chop those forests. Because there are only 5 forests, we can start GW and finish it with one stone and whiping, and use those 4 forest left for Pyramids. To fasten that plan we can settle on stone, this will give us chance to succed.


Second option: chop GW in one city, Pyramids in another city. It's not so great as both of those wonders in one city, but stil quite nice. I just think that GEng. in early game, are realy powerful ;]

EDIT: Rihiter, had you patched your Warlords to 2.08 before you installed the HOF mod?
I don't remember :D , must check it. That might be the problem ;]

Great wall now only adds +1 engineer with the new patch.

I think the wall could be good, but it depends on how long it takes. I'm worried about loosing the pyramids to an industrious civ with stone if we don't start it after getting masonry. We'd have to whip out a couple of workers. Let's reevaluate after Blid has researched Masonry for us as he planned to.

Kikinit: nice photoshop skillz :) But you missed out a city 2N of the cows. Green dot doesn't need the cows - it can use the fish.I switched over to Paint.net nowadays. I find it a great program to use.

On the subject of great wall I think we need to ensure that we get the pyramids. The value of being able to switch civics without researching the required techs is so much that we mustn't do other things that will risk missing it.

Hi Rihiter. In fact the pyramids cost has been upgraded in the patch. It is now 750H on epic speed. Without mathematics, a forest in BFC (after culture expansion) brings 30H. With stone, we get 60H. So for the pyramids alone, we need 750/60 = 12 forests. The capital don't have any mines to work, so trying any wonder in the capital is very risky, even more two wonders. And for the stone, we must wait until sailing is done to do get the bonus

Also, the great wall gives only 1 great eningeer point, not 2 like the pyramids (Sooooo already pointed that out)

The stone city would have a production of 2H (center tile) + 7H (plain + grassland hills mines) when at size 3. That's 18 hammers with stone bonus
If we substract 220 hammers from the forests (the forest outside cultural borders only give 20 hammers), that leaves us with (750-220)/18 = 530/18 = 30 turns. If we whip a bit, we can cut this down to 25 turns.

Well ok, I don't know the changes which 2.08 brings into the game. I don't have time to play much civ lately. So if GW gives only +1GEpoint it's not so powerful as it was before.

About building pytamids... then we will have to build it in the stone city, don't we?

Pyramids definitely must be built in the Stone City. I think we should even start on them right away and (using soooo's build order) use that second work boat to hook up the clams for the Stone City. The Great Wall isn't worth it, in my opinion. We must stay very focused to get Pyramids.

I just stumbled across this idea (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4839545&postcount=526) in my usual forum lurking. Any comments? I have to get out the door and go to work, so I haven't really thought about the merits of it yet.

Interesting, but is it checked under 2.08?

I played 21 turns to get fishing and masonry.

I switched to slavery after the first warrior was done and started another worker next. After discovering fishing, I spent one turn on the workboat then whipped it. The city would grow after 3 turns and the second warrior was due in 2, so I spend one turn on a workboat

The settler is due in 14 turns. Sailing can be researched in 15 turns. This means our cities would be connected right away giving us trade routes. The wheel is another option, but we need a worker to road the cities and we don't have one.

We have also the option of whipping the settler (the previous penalty is almost gone). We are generating 6H by turn right now. 45H corresponds to 7,5 turns, so we can have the settler in 7 turns instead of 14. The city would grow back to size 2 in 9 turns (34/4). In fact, I like this option and think Kikinit diversion for bronze working first can work very well. The city can finish the workboat next to send it to our stone city.

One of the warriors is in the capital and the other is fortified on a hill next to the stone. Don't know if you guys want to explore and let the city undefended but I am nervous with those aggressive AIs.

Mao converted to slavery during my turns and hinduism was found in a distant land in 2770 BC. This is damn late with 17 civs on board. I thought that with warlords, some AIs would chase polytheism before monotheism. It seems it's not the case, at least in this game

@pindicator : thinking about that weakest civ gets the UN trick, I see that we need communism and scotland yard and spy before we can see where that UN is being built. We are beelining to mass media so I don't think it would work. Other problem is if that AI gets attacked and becomes a vassal of some other stronger AI. But getting an engineer or even 2 would be a nice boost. I remember reading in some diplo strategy article that it is even a must when you are playing for fastest victories in HOF. We need to be careful with national wonders placements

2740 BC save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG003_BC2740_01.CivWarlordsSav e)

Kikinit
blid
sooooo - UP
pindicator - On Deck
Ralph Jackson
Rihiter

I should have time to play tonight.

The plan: whip settler when possible, then grow back up to size 4 while building a work boat (maybe two if we have time). Settle on the stone, start pyramids in new city. Send workboat to new city. Research into sailing then the wheel. That should be enough for one turnset.

About whiping...
Whipe as much as possible, it's wery powerfull. Especialy workers and settlers ( this way we're converting food into production - this is a hudge bost ).

Right, I played until we researched Sailing and Mysticism.

I whipped our settler as blid suggested and he founded St. Petersburg on the stone.

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/5721/stpetehn8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We met Alex on the same turn. You can see his borders east of the fish.

While growing, Moscow built a work boat. My instinct told me to build another workboat in St Pete before starting the pyramids. I think this is better than letting the capital build it because the capital has no production, so would have to whip it. We already have 1 whipping anger from settler, are going to get another from its workboat and I didn't want to but a third point of unhapiness onto it in quick succession. Furthermore, having St Pete build its own WB lets the capital build the worker faster, thus getting chopping earlier.

So St Pete finished building its WB at the same time as Moscow whipped one. St Pete started the Pyramids and Moscow built a warrrior. Just 1 warrior to defend St Pete is a bit risky if an attacker gets a lucky role. After that it started a galley while growing.

It is now size 2. Allowing it to grow to size 4 and whipping the worker will get it out slightly later than building it by hand on size 2, but we will have 1 HPT into a galley while growing.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3//Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG003_BC2020_01.CivWarlordsSav e)

Kikinit
blid
sooooo
pindicator - UP
Ralph Jackson - On Deck
Rihiter

sooooo, I think the workboat is a good call for St. Pete. It will make the city grow faster getting quicker to the point it can whip the pyramids and working more cells and the capital as you mentioned is struggling to give many hammers.

I also like the idea of letting the capital grow back to size 4, building a galley whilst doing so. Some exploration by sea is needed to let us know what our surroundings look like.

Guys, I'm going to be out of action as my CIV PC has terminated itself. I'll have to work out what's wrong and maybe replace a few bits and with the way things are in my life at the moment (hectic) it will take me a while. I'll still be in the forums and contributing if I can but won't be able to take any turnsets until further notice.

May be a major computer upgrade will have to be my xmas present this year.

@pindicator : when are you planning to play this ?

What about techs now : the wheel seems a no brainer. After that, I see pottery or AH to open writing. Iron working is also of good use. But it all depends if we place our third city to the north in the cows/fish/gems spot or to the west in the copper spot

Yeah we need a plan for Pindicator's turns. We also need to decide whether to interrupt St Pete to build a monument. Probably not. Wheel and pottery sound good to me.

Moscow gets its second expansion in 10 turns IIRC. This would include the third forested hill in StPet BFC. Don't think we need a monument

Once the galley is out, it should scout the close surroundings first, making circles around our capital. First scouting priority is the copper site of course.

I'll play this tomorrow. i haven't had a chance to look at the save yet, and i'll do that tonight and post some thoughts.

Sorry to hear about your computer Kikinit. Hope you can get that fixed, but definitely keep contributing the ideas.

Still haven't seen much, but I have taken a look at the save a bit.

Regarding tech path, Wheel is indeed a good no-brainer. After wheel I say we head for Pottery to make good use of our cheap Granaries. We can start using the whip on new cities at this point. After Pottery do we go for AH or get Writing as quick as possible? Our capital seems very well suited for running a couple specialists and we should take advantage of that when we don't want settlers or workers.

I'm guessing that we should have the Pyramids done in ~40 turns. With that in mind, how about a tech path of Wheel -> Pottery -> Writing so by the time the library is done we can have 2 scientists pumping out 12bpt and 12GPP/turn

I was thinking we need our first great person to be a great engineer from the pyramids for TGL. IIRC, we need 150 GPP which corresponds to 150/4 = 38 turns. If we hire scientists in the capital, it would be ahead in GPP, and the second great person would be even harder unless we get a forge and hire a great engineer.
We can concentrate on settlers/workers until the first GE is born. But Iron working is a must then to get the gems on and compensate for the scientists beakers
The capital can hire only one scientist a bit later than pyramids in a way that it is slightly behind in GPP points

I also think we should research AH before pottery. No city would have time to build a granary this early and if we disocver horises around, we are safe for a good while

IMO : Wheel->AH->pottery->IW->Writing
Prod : galley (partial)->worker(chops pyramids)->galley->worker (chops capital)->warrior->settler

Galley until we hit size 4, then switch to worker for 1 turn and then whip. Agree with Blid about the capital building workers and settlers for the most part.

We may want to get archery at some point.

Just to say back from my travels, will try and get up to speed on the game / plans over the weekend.

Cheers

Ralph

Okay, that makes good sense blid. I take it we plan to use the GE on the Great Library? If so, we probably should head add Alphabet & Literature to the end of your list.

I think before we go on any side-route like Archery (or even Literature) we have to decide if the beakers we put into it are going to be worth the diversion. Archery is one of those techs I would prefer to avoid if at all possible, especially since the AI is inept at warfare among islands.

I'll play through Wheel & possibly all of AH later on today.

Moscow will be Galley until size 4 (14 turns), 1 turn into worker, and then whip worker on turn 16. After that I finish the galley while growing again, correct? FYI, in Moscow it takes 6 turns to grow from size 2 to 3, and 8 turns to grow from 3 to 4, one turn into production and that nicely fits with our 15 turns of anger penalty for whipping.

St. Pete's will be all about the Pyramids. I'll figure out the quickest way to produce them before playing.

So I started off by taking way too much time to find the optimum path to build the Pyramids. I screwed up a couple times on the timing of when the worker was due out of Moscow, and then again on having the chops come on the IBT after and not before they were chopped out, but that's just me not understanding my own spreadsheet.

Short story: Pyramids due in 42 turns from the start of my turnset at the quickest. That involves chopping 3 forests around St. Petersburg (2 hill forests and the lone grassland forest) and building 1 mine. Here's what I figured:




I included a couple variations I tried (not all, I tried about a dozen in all) and the first one that is listed is the fastest. The only difference between the first and the second is that in the first the worker takes an extra turn of movement to chop the grassland forest which is not being worked. The third one is just straight chopping, and it also finishes in 42 but having a mine and an extra forest makes the first chart the clear winner.


turn hpt hammers fpt food pop Notes / Worker Actions
0 20 20 1 working clam tile
1 4 24 4 24 1
2 4 28 4 28 1
3 4 32 4 32
4 4 36 4 3 2 working clam tile, forest grass
5 6 42 4 7
6 6 48 4 11
7 6 54 4 15
8 6 60 4 19
9 6 66 4 23
10 6 72 4 27
11 6 78 4 31
12 6 84 4 35 Moscow hits pop 4
13 6 90 4 3 3 working clam tile, forest grass, grass hill
14 10 100 3 6 Moscow finishes worker
15 10 110 3 9 worker moves to 1st forest grass hill
16 10 120 3 12 worker mines See #3
17 10 130 3 15
18 10 140 3 18
19 10 150 3 21
20 10 160 3 24
21 10 170 3 27
22 10 180 3 30
23 10 190 3 33
24 10 200 3 36
25 10 210 3 0 4 working claims, forest grass hill x2, plains hill
26 18 228 0 0 worker finishes mine & chop (+60 hammers), forest hill grass now mined grass hill
27 80 308 worker moves to 2nd grass forest hill
28 20 328 worker moves to forest grass See #2
29 20 348 worker chops
30 20 368
31 20 388
32 20 408
33 20 428 chop finishes (+60 hammers), forest grass now grass
34 80 508 worker moves to forest grass hill
35 20 528 worker chops
36 20 548
37 20 568
38 20 588
39 20 608 chop finishes (+60 hammers), forest grass hill now grass hill
40 78 686
41 18 704 whip 2 pop (60 hammers)
42 68 772

turn hpt hammers fpt food pop Notes / Worker Actions
#2 28 20 328 0 0 4 worker chops
29 20 348
30 20 368
31 20 388
32 20 408 chop finishes (+60 hammers), forest hill now grassland hill
33 78 486 worker moves to plains hill
34 18 504 worker chops
35 18 522
36 18 540
37 18 558
38 18 576 chop finishes (+60 hammers) forest plains hill now plains hill
39 76 652
40 16 668
41 16 684
42 16 700 whip 2 pop (+60 hammers)
43 68 768

turn hpt hammers fpt food pop Notes / Worker Actions
#3 17 10 130 3 15 3 worker chops
18 10 140 3 18
19 10 150 3 21
20 10 160 3 24
21 10 170 3 27 chop finishes (+60 hammers next IBT)
22 70 240 3 30 worker moves to 2nd forest grasshill
23 10 250 3 33 worker moves to grass forest
24 10 260 3 36 worker chops
25 16 276 3 0 4 working claims, grass hill, grass fores hill, plains hill
26 16 292 0 0
27 16 308 0
28 16 324 0 worker finishes chop (+60 hammers)
29 76 400 0 worker moves to grass forest hill
30 16 416 0 worker chops
31 16 432 0
32 16 448 0
33 16 464 0
34 16 480 0 worker finishes chop (+60 hammers)
35 74 554 0 worker moves to plains hill
36 14 568 0 worker chops
37 14 582 0
38 14 596 0
39 14 610 0
40 14 624 0 worker finishes chop (+60 hammers)
41 72 696 whip 2 pop (60 hammers)
42 68 764


Yes, I probably spent too much time on it, but I needed to get my mind off of other stuff.



Inherited Turn IT
Mysticism -> Wheel

1) 1990BC
I fortified our northern warrior as a fog-buster / border guard.

2) 1930BC
Judaism is FIADL

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/285/bc1930jewishbarbariancz4.jpg

Does this mean the barbarian is Jewish?

4) 1990BC
St. Petersburg grows, and I keep iit on maximum growth, per my strategy.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2349/bc1900stpetepop2rr3.jpg

6) 1840BC
Moscow grows to size 3. I move the new citizen to a floodplains to grow in 6. This means it would only take 13 turns to make the worker, which I don't think was any slower at all than hand-building it. And somehow I had thought it would take 8 turn for Moscow to grow to pop 4, so I had to redo all my carefully laid plans here. :lol:

8) 1780BC
My toilet flushes without prompt. It's been doing that lately.

And then on the IBT this happened:

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/388/bc1780thewheeldj0.jpg

Research went towards Animal Husbandry next.

12) 1660BC
Moscow hits size 4 and swaps to a worker.

13) 1630BC
Time to whip the worker.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4182/bc1630workerpopbf6.jpg

I forgot about being expansive! The whipping a worker is even better for us; we get 135 hammers for 2 pop, and more overflow into our galley! Maybe I'm getting a little too excited, but it was a nice bonus to see that come up.

14) 1600BC
Pyramids update: 100/750 hammers.

16) 1540BC
Our worker begins mining the first hill. This is the only hill he should mine. All the others he should chop. More on that later.

20) 1420BC
Moscow grows to pop 3. This time I let the governor have his plains spice tile. Growth to pop 4 will be in 8 turns, timing with the whip unhappiness, and the extra hammers will help get that galley out.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/791/bc120bcmoscowpop3fn9.jpg

I think after Moscow hits pop4 we need to get a settler going to claim that copper. It's even better now, because as you can see the next turn Animal Husbandry came in and revealed this little gem.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/9999/bc1390horsesun8.jpg

I want a pony!

Time to dust off those dot-mapping skills. But I'm really hoping the galley shows us some seafood to the west, otherwise the town that hooks up the bronze and horses won't grow much.

Also, Stonehenge just fell in the last turn. Someone far, far away.

Now, back to the Pyramids. If you open up the chart, we are currently on turn 21 of 42 (well, technically 25 of 46 but I'm counting from the start of my turnset). Halfway there! Meaning we should have Pyramids by roughly... oh, 760BC or so. Sound like a good date? For St. Pete's, once it hits pop 4 max out production: clam, mined hill, forest hill, forest plains hill. After it finishes with its mine, the worker should move up to the forested grassland and chop that next, and then move to either forested hill (I prefer the plains hill in hopes of regrowing a forest on that grassland) and chop that, and that should be just about enough. If you do not chop the grassland forest next, and instead chop both hill forests we actually lose a turn on the Pyramids -- go figure, but that scenerio is #2 in the table above.

The Save, 1390BC (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG003_BC1390_01.CivWarlordsSav e)

Pindicator, I don't have the know-how to check your analysis rigourously, but that appears to be some nice number crunching :goodjob:! Thanks for the time you put into that. I really hope we get the pyramids. 760 BC should normally be OK, though with 17 civs I'm not sure. At least we now know that we got there optimally. Fingers crossed!

Tech after pottery ... writing?

Kikinit
blid
sooooo
pindicator
Ralph Jackson - UP
Rihiter - On Deck

Great work pindicator taking us to the pyramids the optimal way :goodjob:
I see maximizing food for quick growth was the way to go.

Here's my thoughts for the capital builds : finish galley (4 turns)->warrior (partial) till size 4 in capital (3 turns)->build settler (19 turns)->whipped worker (2 turns)->warrior or workboat (if seafood near copper/horsies town) with overflow(1 turn)
That is a total of 29 turns. We need another 10 turns to travel, settle the city and hook the horses (they are stronger against axes and can deal with archers).
I just fear we get a barb axe wandering into our lands

An alternative would be :
finish galley (4 turns)->warrior (partial) till size 4 in capital (3 turns)->whipped worker (2 turns)->warrior (1 turn)->workboat (4 turns)->anything till size 3->settler (chopped and whipped when possible)

With this plan, we can use the extra warrior so we can expand our fog busting to the tile north of the cow. The workboat can go to the tile 1W, 1NW to the horses to ensure our landing party would be safe. Another advantage of expanding our line of sight north of the cows is that we would have time to research archery and whip an archer in case an axe appears. Right now, we are short one turn because archery needs 6 turns and an axe can get to StPet in 5 turns. The worker can farm or cottage the flood plains before starting chopping the settler.

Concerning the capital, once a lighthouse is built, we would have +8 extra food. With calendar, we would have +10 with the grassland spices. I think this is enough to hire specialists in the mid game, so we can cottage the flood plains and the grasslands. It is different though if we plan to run caste system and hire an army of scientists. with representation, gems/forges and spices and hopefully some traded resources, the capital can get very big. One more thing to take into account is that if we want our scientists to lightbulb the lower tech branch, we must not research civil service. Otherwise, scientists would prefer paper and education to optics and astronomy. Any thoughts about that ? It is pushing the game a bit far away but I think we need to decide now if we farm all over the place for caste system and lightbulbed astro or cottage and go the bureaucracy way lightbulbing paper and education

EDIT : tech wise, I guess writing can go before IW. It's a while before a settler is ready for the cow site. We can use writing to open borders with the neighbours and get some trade routes. I don't know if they would accept though, being aggressive AIs. Also, Alex may decide we are too weak and strike.

oh boy, lots of stuff to discuss and I have to go to a wedding. I'll mull over this today and tomorrow and try to get some more ideas. Good point on Great Scientists, blid, but I think we may end up using them on both fronts. I need to double check the tech preference list, but my gut is telling me Civil Service and Great Scientists on Paper (1) and Education (1 or 2) is better for the cheap unis, and then research Optics and use further great scientists for Astronomy while researching Liberalism. Could we then even pop Sci Method or Physics with Liberalism ??? That's probably reaching a bit, but if we are Philo and get enough Great Scientists then we could really do it.

Short term, I think we want Iron Working online not too long after we settled the horse city. There are several grassland gems for that town as well, which we need to take advantage of.

Also, quick note: what do people think about spamming warriors/fishing boats to fog bust our entire island?

Ralph, when are you planning to play?

I like the idea of building warriors while we regrow from 2 to 4 at the capital.

Write as we are in every turn matters mode and Pindicators has done some detailed analysis just want to check I understand the plan.

Moscow
Finishes galley ( 4 turns at which point 3 turns away from growing to size 4)
Then

Option A Warrior for 3 turns (partial build to get to size 4)
Settler Build 19 turns then ? (next turn set so don’t need to resolve yet)

This seems to settle copper town a.s.a.p but leaves us very light in terms of warriors

Option B Finish Warrior before Settler so it has an escort which delays the settler a bit

Option C 2nd worker first which doesn’t feel right as I don’t see the need for it?

Views??

St Pete’s

My understanding is

1 Worker finishes Mine
2. When it hits size 4 MM to maximize hammers
3. Chop Grassland Forest
4. Chop Plains Hill

Is that right as I don’t want to mess up Pindicators plans

Warrior stays where he is
Galley tries to spot if a seafood resource near copper-town while settler is being built.

As soon as plan is clear I will play as the hard bit is making sure I have absorbed the plan!

Cheers

Ralph

Well decided plan was clear enough to play as I understood Pindicators plan for the Pyramids and that would be the only area where a mistake would be critical.

So

Basically St Pete’s just followed the path in my previous post.

The galley went exploring to the West and on uncovering a Barb near copper town convinced me to finish the Warrior Build before the Settler as it would need an escort.
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1barbr.jpg
On exploring west met Gandhi and JC (note Gandhi hasn’t founded a religion yet, don’t see that very often EDIT Whoops this is Warlods Gandhi os perfectly normal EDITOFF)
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1gandhi.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1caesar-1.jpg
A thought occurs to me have they hidden the religious civs in a far off corner so we play without the happiness boost from early religions for a long while (astronomy?). Probably pure :smoke: but our corner of the world is distinctly godless.

After Pottery comes in I go for Writing then Iron Working. Order could have been switched but I still think IW comes in on time as first worker priority at coppertown is to hook up the copper so we will have IW when we need it ?

Mao asked for OB and I gave it, haven’t approached other AI since we got writing

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1maoob.jpg

EOT Report

Played 20

Turnlog
Here is your Session Turn Log from 1390 BC to 895 BC:


Turn 94, 1180 BC: You have discovered Pottery!

Turn 100, 1000 BC: The Great Wall has been built in a far away land!

Turn 103, 955 BC: You have discovered Writing!

Turn 105, 925 BC: Clearing a Forest has created 30 ? for St. Petersburg.

Here are what we know of our neighbours borders. Gandhi to the north JC down south
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1gandjcborder.jpg
And here are Mao’s borders.
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1maorborder.jpg

City states.
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1pyramids.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/1settler.jpg
Note,

Don’t forget the Barb out West
The Settler can be whipped if desired.

Cross fingers for the Pyramids!!

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG003_BC0895_01.CivWarlordsSav e)

We can also whip the pyramids but is it worth it with 3 turns to go?

Wow, only 3 turns left for the pyramids :please: :please: :please:

Shame there is no food a the copper+horses site. Dotmap incoming ...

I suggest to whip. It's just a loss of 2 people now and ensured pyramids. Loosing it by a couple turns would kill our morale

I would not whip the settler and whip the worker right after because we get the expansive bonus there. I'd hook the horses before the copper. Odds of a sword appearing are very low but an axe can appear any moment. Chariots are stronger versus axes than axes

Also, I'd keep some fog to the NW. This way, we may have a free city from a barbarian settlement

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/5671/dotmapdz6.jpg

That splits up the isle to 1 food resource per city except the capital and yellow dot, and gives horses+copper site some food.

We need to decide where our great people farm will be. Yellow dot looks interesting, but we can't irrigate anything. I think I prefer the capital. Ignore green dot if we decide this. Yellow dot can run scientists too though. Only thing is, that rules out bureaucracy-fuelled cottage paradise at the capital. Hmm.

P.S I would whip pyramids too.

Oh, and I think our lands are under threat to be poached by Gandhi and Alex. I would spam settlers at this point, minimal workers until we land some more cities.

Oh, and I think our lands are under threat to be poached by Gandhi and Alex. I would spam settlers at this point, minimal workers until we land some more cities.

This is a good point. We need to settle at least so that they need OB to stick in coastal waters to get to our land. Which means red dot , green dot and yellow dot. Blue and pink are unraechable by Galley (I think).

Note green dot may be a higher priority as you cant see it on the first picture I posted but there are crabs in the see SE of the jungle square so making it more productive.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j19/Ralph_Jackson/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

Ralph

Roster update: Rihiter is UP! Please advise us when you plan to play.


Kikinit - On Deck
blid
sooooo
pindicator
Ralph Jackson
Rihiter - UP

The major downside with whipping the Pyramids is the loss of production when we need it to pump out 2 settlers for red and green dots as the capital probably wants to bee line a library to start running 2 scientists. I still think we are getting the pyramid pretty early and would just build it normally.

Ralph

My plans called for whipping Pyramids, but that was with the goal of Pyramids ASAP. Is it worth the risk? Just 3 turns, and we certainly don't need Representation any quicker. But we probably could use the extra warriors/galleys for fog-busting and exploration.

We need to get our galleys moving for circumnavigation. Haven't look at the save, but I'll try to tonight.

And we still haven't discussed long-term strategy too much.

There really aren't many happy resources around are there? And we aren't getting any religions soon. What are we going to do to grow our cities bigger?

And sooooo, I'm OOP (computer malfunction) until further notice.

Representation gives +2 happy, gems give +2 happy with forges and we have plenty of gems to trade for other happy resources. Being expansive, we can also trade some of our health resources away.

Thinking about it, we can stop poaching by Gandhi and Alex by being careful about open borders.

Agree with pindicator, we need a mid to long term plan now.

- Decide between farming and cottaging the capital and GP farm place. If we cottage the capital, then pink dot seems better for GP farm, because we can spread irrigation

- Tech path including education or not. BTW, I checked again and optics is preferred to paper. So we can at least get to that point even with CS unlocked

- War timing : probably after assessing the coalitions and the religion spreading around. With what units : cats/maces ? wait till knights ? If we find elephants, then construction may be enough to launch the first attack. I am used to getting friends through HR civic, but this is out for us in this game since we're running representation.

Concerning happiness, representation has been brought back to +3 with the new patch. We won't have much problems with anger, methinks

And rememeber we need our first GP to be a great engineer. Pay attention to this if you build lib and hire scientists in the capital. IMO, we better concentrate just on settlers/workers/military until we secure our position. A city with access to gems would pay more than a lib

Concerning StPet and whipping, well it is using unimproved tiles. These won't help much with any worker or settler production (only +1). Maybe whipping pyramids is wrong, but whipping a worker after is better IMO. Once you have improved tiles, you can keep your citizens.

Long term, I am in favour of making the capital the GP farm with the great library and ignoring civil service, education and liberalism. I think we can expand to settle our island while we research compass, machinery, optics and astronomy (trading for calendar, construction, currency, CoL, MC). Once we get astronomy we can trade it for engineering and civil service, then go on the offensive with trebuchets. They're the only offensive units we will need for a long time; we can defend them with a few crossbows and macemen.

I can play this tomorrow if Rihiter don't chime in. I haven't thought about a detailed plan but here are my thoughts :

- capital : finish settler naturally. Whip worker, overflow goes into settler and I switch to lighthouse to let the city grow then resume settler. The lighthouse gives +2 food, improving our settler production

- StPet : finish pyramids naturally. Whip worker, overflow goes into to barracks and I finish it naturally. The city would produce units when the horses and/or copper are hooked. I am not sure about barracks though, could be a lighthouse or obelisk. We have only one sea food, some of the second ring tiles are already covered by capital culture and barracks now give only 3 xp. So no building seems evident choice for me

- Copper city : start with an obelisk to bring the fish into BFC

We would have three workers for three cities. There are enough improvements to do and we can start clearing the jungle for the cows site if they run out of useful jobs. My reasoning is that whipping workers is more effective now that our cities lack improvements. Once citizens are working nice tiles, it would be more painful

Feel fee to disagree, criticize, porpose something else :)

I can play till we discover iron working

Remember how inept the AI is at war between islands. We could do an axe/cat war if we choose to, assuming we are not going after their starting island. Maybe we'll get lucky and find / take over some ivory.

The consensus seems to be lower line development. I really admire the decision here: I've been the one saying "stay focused" and yet was advocating a tech path that probably had too many diversions. Going for Astronomy also plays better with the Specialist strat: observatories add an additional scientist; unis do not.

Blid - I like the build choices except for Copper City. With the idea of staying focused, I'd consider doing a Library instead of an Obelisk for hte culture. Oh yes, lots of more hammers, but they are hammers we are going to want to invest anyway. Further: we can hook up the horses immediately, which will be enough to hold keep the barbs in check.

Edit: Just doing this computation in my head here...

On the first turn that the city is settled, the worker starts pasturing the horses. First citizen works the horse plains tile (which is 1f 2h 1c, right?)

Case 1: Monument first
The first 5 turns at 3hpt = 15/45
Next 6 turns at 5hpt = 45/45
15 turns to expand borders = 26 turns total to expand culture to the fish

Case 2: Library first
First 5 turns at 3hpt = 15/135
Next 24 turns at 5hpt = 135/135
8 turns to expand borders = 37 turns to expand culture to the fish and connect resource

The monument gets us there 11 turns quicker. 11 turns at 5fpt is a big enough difference that I think the monument is the right play.

Turnsets don't have to be played that quickly, but it is important for the next player to post a Got It to let it be known that you realise you are up, and give us an idea of when you will play.

Rihiter - do you realise you are up?

OK, take it away Blid.

I'll play tomorrow. I was finishing my report for RB warlords one today, since someone was claiming there were too few reports :p

You can go check my unfruitful diplomatic attempts with warlords 2.08 there (http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1731). Might help with this game

A point for debate:

I don't think we should use Caste System much, if at all. The only time I can see advocating use of it is later in the game with more expensive techs. Slavery will serve us better: a water-heavy map where shields are at more of a premium than usual. Plus, we are expansive for cheap granaries. (Boy, Peter's traits just scream CE don't they?)

Another: 1st Gr. Sci should build an Academy in Moscow

Hi. I don't have much time lately so I don't write much here, sorry for that.

I'll be able to play during the weekend if You can wait so long.

Glad to hear from you Rihiter. I am OOP for three weeks starting this sunday and with you AWOL, it would have dropped our team to three active players. I'll be able to check and comment though

I am playing this now, report in a couple hours

IHT : the worker at the capital is cottaging the flood plains. Since the capital has a lot of food, I thought we can afford a cottage even though we decided to make it a GP farm. We don't know agriculture either, so we can't start them right away

Our galley met Victoria, wandering with a trireme. She came from the west, Julius side

Our first great project is done :goodjob: :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM3/01.jpg

I chose a worker next in St Pet and whipped it. His first assignement was to mine the forested hill. The overflow went into barracks

Juluis asked for open borders and I denied him.

The capital finished the settler and I started a worker there, also whipped next turn. He chopped a forest on the way to StPet

I was planning to get the overflow into a lighthouse, but seeing that the granary would finish in 1 turn, thanks to our expansive trait, I changed plans. With the excess food we have, the city have grown back to size 4 at the end of my turnset. Sure the granary gave us more food than the lighthouse would have done. I started a lighthouse after the granary

St Pet started a granary after the barracks. They are so cheap, I think I couldn't resist. And it can't build advanced units yet.

Our city Novgorod was settled on soooo's spot, claiming fish, horses, copper and gems

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM3/02.jpg

The oracle fell in 715 BC. Alex came asking for open borders too and I refused him

And in 655 BC, we discovered Iron working, and know what, StPet really rocks :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM3/03.jpg

I sent the galley south east and we know a lot about chinese lands now :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM3/04.jpg

IMO, the galley should stay around to transport at lesat a chariot to NovGorod. Maybe we can build a trireme and send it to explore

Now, here's my thoughts :

- Novgorod should be able to build its own workboat after the monument and get it in time to hook the fish

- The horses pasture is done. The road should take 4 turns and we would be able to start chariots. StPet would finish the granary next turn with overflow from the forest mined. It can start a trireme, switch to a couple chariots once horses are connected then finish it. I'd rather build it here where we get the 3XP from barracks. The trireme can be dedicated to exploring and finding a path to circumnavigation

- We should decide on whom we open borders with. Getting a way for the trireme or galley should be taken into account. AI personalities too. I don't trust Alex. I would open border with JC though, before he gets offended and decides to strike. Maybe India too. We don't have enough info yet and all the AIs are cautious towards each other. None of them has a religion yet.

- I selected alphabet (26 turns) as our next tech but I am very tempted by agriculture (6 turns) to start farming the capital and grow to the max to leverage the pyramids. We would also be able to farm the rice at StPet, and a river tile

- Speaking of which, I didn't switch to representation yet. I was planning to do it while the settler was traveling and forgot. We would need it soon because the capital would grow past the happiness limit before the whipping penalty is gone thanks to the granary.

- For the capital, I don't know what we could build. The lighthouse is taking 18 turns which is too much IMO. We can whip it in 7 turns once anger is dissipated, use the overflow to get a lib. The city spends too much time building stuff and I would like to see the scientists asap. The engineer is due in 24 turns. The question is whether we should delay building a settler for the cow site that much.

- The capital worker, after finishing chopping, started a road to StPet. But now that Iron has been located, we may send both workers to hook it up asap

- If we are safe, I'd rather keep some fog in the north. When barbs are no more a threat, they can provide you with free experience and if they settle a city, we can make an economy of a settler.

Too much decisions to take, I am overwhelmed :)

save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG003_BC0655_01.CivWarlordsSav e)

Blid! :sleep: We're still a despostism! Why not form a more representative manner of government to appease our citizens? :mischief:

I do love St. Pete's too. Iron showing up there really has me kicking myself. That settler would have been so much better up by the cows. Now that we have Iron, we need to get those gems ONLINE and pumping out the :commerce:

There is another city site that jumped out at me once I opened the save.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/8052/bc0655supercitylt6.jpg

I would say this is the best site in danger of getting picked up. But we really need to get our commerce tiles online, and to that I say we should settle the cow tile next. Ugh! Which one first!? Basically we need two settlers out quick, but we also need a library and two scientists up fast in Moscow ... because our research rate is a little bad right now. 26 turns for Alphabet, assuming we trade for Polytheism, and then 20 more turns for Literature. With some gems and some scientists we could carve a good chunk out of that.

I would make minimal barb-busting defense. I'm not scared of an AI attack right now, and if they do attack us early, then we're not going to win the competition regardless of the outcome. I think we need those shields for 2 settlers, at least 1 library, and a few more workers to deal with all those gems, iron, and jungle we have out now.

Come to think of it, maybe we should settle just the cow/gem site in the north first. We need to get some commerce coming in. (Also, after the Novgorod worker makes his road, perhaps he should go for the gems next to get those online? The bronze isn't as important now that we have Iron.) If the iron site is still available we can get it later. If not, we can take it later, if ya know what I mean :devil:

Oh, what do we think of an early war in a few rounds? We'd have to start building up soon if we want to go that route against one of our neighbors

Edit: Whoops, I forgot to answer your notes:

-Novgorod: Workboat = yes. After that a granary and possibly sneak in a chariot for defense first. Have the worker mine gems after connecting horses.

-Um, I'm not following this: I'd rather build it here where we get the 3XP from barracks. The trireme can be dedicated to exploring and finding a path to circumnavigation Build what here? I don't understand. Not the trireme, cause that doesn't get exp from barracks. Are we going to start building an attack force to take out a neighbor, because we don't need a barracks for barbs. I'm not always a strong proponent of early war, if only because I'm lazy and peaceful in private games. But I hear its the way to go.

-Circumnavigation is king. Open Borders with whomever it takes to get the bonus. Consider closing them again after our galley/trireme has passed through.

-Agriculture = :thumbsup:

-Switch to Representation as soon as a city is about to push against the happy limit, or as soon as we get a citizen up.

-Capital... I think it should build Library right away. Or a settler right away, but I think we better stop whipping out of this town. Oh, I keep going back and forth on that! But the lighthouse can wait until after the Library.

-Agree on hooking up Iron. St. Pete's will be our hammer powerhouse for this game.

-I think we need to start emphasizing :science: here. That means gem mines and scientists and libraries wherever they can take advantage of either one.

(You know I was just kidding around on the :sleep: thing up above, right?)

I did mean the trireme for the xp. Isn't it a military unit getting the xp from barracks ?

Anyway, I hatred myself for not revolting before settling Novgorod

As for the capital, switching to a library seems right, so we can start those scientists

I don't see the need for early war here. We have plenty of land to peacefully settle - early war will set us back in science.

Should be able to play tonight, allowing Rihiter to play this weekend. Agriculture then alphabet. Revolt to representation, build library in capital, other things in other cities. Should aim to produce a settler by the end of my turns.

Didn't have time to play, will play Saturday

I see You have changed the roster a little bit, ok then I can play after sooooo.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM3/02.jpg
Why do you want to build a city here?
I would rather build it to the plain on the SW form our settler.
Whiping a jungle is not worth building a city on a weak position.
We are waisting gems, and a lot of very good coast tiles ( with the colossus the will give us +3gp - I think that is a nice bost ).

Yeah we skipped you for a while, but I thought I could play on Friday before you said you could play on the weekend - I couldn't do it but I'll play right now and then you can pick it up. Sorry about that.

In regards to your city: did you miss the fish we get in the BFC? That fish will let us work the horses and copper for some decent production and faster growth - worth missing a gems IMO.

Played 21 turns to bring us to the end of alphabet.

IHT: I decide to continue with alphabet, not switch to agriculture. This is because won't need to farm the rice at St Pete until we get alpha, at which time we can trade for it. We shouln't worry about being WFYHBTA in this game because with 17 civs and going for diplo, we're bound to be friendly with someone. I change Moscow from lighthouse to library.

640 BC (Turn 1): St Pete finishes granary, starts Tireme. Going to send it east for the circumnav bonus.

610 BC (Turn 3): Horses are connected, so St Pete delays its tireme to being a chariot.

535 BC (Turn 7): I'm going to grow Moscow to size 6 unhapiness to whip the library.

550 BC (Turn 8): St Pete finishes chariot, resumes tireme.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/1954/chariotwr8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

520 BC (Turn 9): Confucianism FIDL. Grr, Vicky asks us to cancel deals with chinese despite them having +1 to each other. I turn her down.

505 BC (Turn 10): Great Lighthouse BIDL. Whip library in Moscow.

http://img309.imageshack.us/img309/370/505bcdk1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

490 BC (Turn 11): Moscow resumes its lighthouse. I'm going to get it up to size 5 and use 1 chop and the whip for a settler here to get green dot.

475 BC (Turn 12): Meet hatty in the north, she is jewish. She's a threat to blue dot.

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4679/hattyll9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

460 BC (Turn 13): Promote chariot to combat 1, kill barb warrior.

445 BC (Turn 14): St Pete finishes tireme, timed to coincide with growth to size 4 so it starts a settler for blue dot. Stop chop at Moscow.

430 BC (Turn 15): Switch Moscow from lighthouse to settler, complete chop. Open borders with Alex to allow tireme to pass through. Alex has horses and HBR by the way :eek:.

415 BC (Turn 16): Switch Moscow back to lighthouse (1 turn left).

400 BC (Turn 17): Moscow puts 1 turn into an axe for it to grow to size 5.

385 BC (Turn 18): Back to settler at Moscow.

370 BC (Turn 19): Novgorod finishes WB, starts granary. A great engineer is born in a distant land. Let's see what he builds ...

355 BC (Turn 20): Temple of Atemis BIDL.

340 BC (Turn 21): Whip granary in Novgorod and settler in Moscow.

Alphabet comes in.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9784/tradesrl0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Think we should trade IW to Gandhi for agriculture and polytheism, allowing us to begin research in literature. Our great engineer is imminent. Hatty is currently most advanced, with metal casting. Did she build oracle? Alex has HBR.

http://img309.imageshack.us/img309/681/empire330bcir8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I believe tech order should be literature then compass. We have 2 spare clams to trade around - we should even gift them if no one had anything we want. There's a trade for them with Hatty, but I haven't made it yet as I wanted to discuss with the team. She is the only AI we know with a religion. We still have OB with Alex, so cancel them if we see a settler galley. We can probably OB with a few more civs for the trade routes.

Believe settler at moscow should load galley unaccompanied, then settle green dot. Galley should then head west for circumnav bonus. Settler from St Pete should go for the commerce-rich blue dot, where the chariot currently is, denying that from Hatty. It would be a disaster if she gets that spot with 3 gems. After its settler, Novgorod should start a spear and an axe to warn off Alex.

Kikinit
blid
sooooo
pindicator - On Deck
Ralph Jackson
Rihiter - UP

Rihiter is up now. Make sure you read the last few turnsets to refamiliarise yourself with the game. Good luck :).

BTW, I cannot play from the 21st to the 29th because I'm going to stay with my parents over christmas. Can still contribute to discussions though.

Save is uploaded, here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG003_BC0340_01.CivWarlordsSav e).

Crap, I forgot to revolt to representation. Didn't make any difference to research because we were whipping and building settlers too much to hire specialists or be at happy cap.

I am linking to your dotmap again, it is easier to follow your propositions for next settlements.

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/5671/dotmapdz6.jpg

Nice turns by the way. That deal with Gandhi for poly and agriculture seems perfect to me. He is the only one lacking IW and is willing to give us the two techs we need right now

Mao already knows alphabet, so we should waste not time and research literature asap

And remember we must not research meditation or trade for it. It would wreck the lightbulbing path

Let's revolt ASAP :)

I'm going to argue for blue dot here, and then argue for two scientists in Moscow. We really need to start cranking on the commerce. While I was thinking green dot would be really big to grab, we can just take it from which ever AI settles there. Or we can settle there next. But there are 3 gems at Blue Dot that will be very nice to help us out with. (Suggest Granary -> Library for that town)

Trade Ghandi :thumbsup:

Isn't the WFYABTFA limit a cumulative limit of all your trades, and then modified by relations?

Compass and Lit should be able to net us some good filler techs (Metal Casting, Math, Currency, CoL hopefully) and then we hit the bottom edge of the tree for Astronomy, correct?

I'm going to argue for blue dot here, and then argue for two scientists in Moscow. We really need to start cranking on the commerce. While I was thinking green dot would be really big to grab, we can just take it from which ever AI settles there. Or we can settle there next. But there are 3 gems at Blue Dot that will be very nice to help us out with. (Suggest Granary -> Library for that town)

Well we have 2 settlers (or will in 4 turns) so we can get both.

Isn't the WFYABTFA limit a cumulative limit of all your trades, and then modified by relations?

Yes, but I'm pretty sure friendly AIs will always trade with you.

Nothing to add to the excellent analysis by sooo / blid

Pre-Turn

1 Switch to representation
2. Trade IW for Poly + Agric to Gandhi

Then

Settle Green Dot with Settler from Capital. Then galley heads west for circumnav attempt
Settle Blue dot with St Pete's settler
Research literature.
Keep an eye on Power Graph and dont forget military as we are as weak as a new born kitten at the moment


Ralph

Do you guys use the exotic advisor ? The techs trading screen is much easier to use and I find those very useful for a diplo game :


To check for coalitions, bad boys and girls, the glance screen is great :

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM3/SGOTM3-01.jpg


And to check for favourite civics and to know how much trade routes are giving you with a particular civ, you can use this one

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f191/blidblid/SGOTM3/SGOTM3-02.jpg


Before accepting to cancel trades with a civ, we can check here to see the money we loose



Giving Hatty clams for her cows and opening borders with her is okay for me. Hatty is a peaceful lady, and one you can befriend and rely upon. It's solely for the relations, I don't think we'll need health points soon. Also, getting judaism in our lands may help us forge coalitions if need be. I think the more religions we get, the better flexible our diplomacy would be

Alex is choked. Mao blocked him north and continued his expansion south and east after that. Like Ralph said above, we should care about military from now on (St Pet should handle it IMO). There are good odds Alex decides to attack us for further expansion if he finds us too weak.

Also, it would be great if we can get our chariot to 10XP by killing barbs. With heroic epic, we would save 50% hammers. Keep some fog.

We can finish chopping the capital for national epic, but not before we get mathematics.

I don't have much time during the week, but I'll try to play before wednesday ends.

We are probably a lock for the great library with the GE waiting to be born. Therefore if anyone demands alphabet we can probably give it to them. Also we should convert if Hatty wants us to go jewish. Good luck Rihiter and keep watch for those greek galleys. I suggest you play up until we get the wonder.

Agree with blid about leaving some fog only if we can get some defense for Novgorod. During my turns there was only a warrior in that city so I busted the fog.

I must delay my playing time till thursday, I won't be able to play it tomorrow. If somebody want's to play before me, go ahead. One more time, sorry.

Pindicator or Ralph - want to play tonight? The plan is well set out so there shouldn't be much thinking to do ...

Okay, I got it.

Wow, I only played 4 1/2 turns guys, but I think a pretty worthwhile alternative is presenting itself here. We were missing a piece from our dot-mapping picture. There's another fish off our island. They are certainly giving us some choices here! So I am proposing an alternate dotmap for us to mull over before I finish up. Rihiter can either take the save from here on Thursday, or I can finish through Literature, which I'm guessing is probably about 7 or 8 turns away (we haven't put up Scientists yet but we will as soon as a worker finishes in 4 turns).

So here is the dotmap suggestion:

http://img319.imageshack.us/img319/1172/bc0280alternatedotmapsc4.jpg

Thoughts? Improvements? One drawback is that we lose another gem with the new dotmap. But what is stronger for us? A fish or a gem? The new blue dot would have 3 food bonus tiles in its radius and could have no problem running scientists for research. We could add a city in 2 tiles south of the gem to pick it up, but that would a cramped city. And if we go with the new dotmap, would we still settle the alternate blue dot first or run out and grab the alternate yellow site to keep Egypt from poaching our lands. I'm concerned that Egypt will poach so I would get another settler out to fill in our lands if we could.

Another option is to keep blue and yellow dots where they are and move purple to the alternate blue dot.

Okay, here is the report for the first 4 1/2 turns:

Inherited Turn

I make the following deals.

First with Hatty:

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3163/bc0325trade1lh1.jpg

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/2766/bc0325trade2bc6.jpg

And then with Ghandi. Ummm, can someone explain to me how this is possible?

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/5659/bc0325trade3kb7.jpg

Do all AI start with Archery and not Hunting? In any case, adding Hunting didn't sweeten the deal any for Ghandi.

I also did not revolt to Representation. Our settler was due in 1 turn and I could do the revolt while the settler is in transit.

1) 325
Moscow: Settler -> Research. I was saving the overflow for when the town hit Size 4 in 2 turns, at which I swapped to a worker.

Novgorod: Granary -> Library. Lighthouse is also an option

And I did revolt this turn.

2) 310
Land the settler.

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/5452/bc0310greendotrn7.jpg
And I was afraid of barbs...

Turns out I did the right thing in waiting to revolt. Heck, all of us did. One extra turn of anarchy anywhere in the past and we would not have gotten this city. No way Ghandi settles on the iron, so we will get the town.

3) 295BC
Settle Rostov on the Green Dot. Start a Granary. Ghandi's settler pair gets bumped out of our culture, but it hasn't moved in the 2 turns since!?

4) 280BC
The birth of a Great Person Library :D

http://img342.imageshack.us/img342/7861/bc0280greatengjt7.jpg

I've moved the GE into Moscow, awaiting Literature.

And then we meet Fred in the east with our Trireme! He is down Writing, so I am able to pull this deal:

http://img342.imageshack.us/img342/4278/bc0280tradefredqo2.jpg

That was all he would give for it, so I'm assuming he was half-done researching the tech. We could have also gotten Mediation or Archery from him instead, but I figured Priesthood would be best as that lowers our cost for Code of Laws.

I also sell Vicky fish for 2gpt. Yes, Vicky has Currency. She also has Monarchy. She is a tech monster.

5) 265BC

Settler is born and then I saw the fish and realized I needed a second opinion. There are some other things I would like input on as well:

Deals to Consider


We can sell Victoria Polytheism for 60 gold and then burn research. Is this worth it? Her and Mao are the only two without the tech.
We can trade Julius Alphabet for Mathematics.
Should we gift Hunting to Ghandi?
Re-assess the Fish for 2gpt deal with Vicky in 10 turns.


Finally, I'm uploading the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Fistful_of_Dynamite_SG003_BC0265_01.CivWarlordsSav e) in case we want to pass off to Rihiter now or if people just want to look at it. If nobody says anything within 24 hours I will finish through Literature.

Also, what are we doing after Literature? Compass I believe was mentioned.

Yeah I considered that spot but kinda thought the gems were better. But on reflection maybe you're right and the ability to have representation-fueled specialists is better. What do others think?

Great call on revolting on turn 1 instead of the inherited turn. I think gandhi's settler will stay there until we pop our borders or open borders with him.

That was all he would give for it, so I'm assuming he was half-done researching the tech. We could have also gotten Mediation or Archery from him instead, but I figured Priesthood would be best

Good choice if you had picked up meditation in the trade Blid would have had a heart attack as it would destroy our lightbulbing path.

Ralph

p.s hard choice between the two dot maps. I am leaning to the new map as the 3 food resource spot lets us really leverage representation in the future with lots of speciailist. But there are arguments for either. Obviously the top priority is to not let any AI's settle on our Island irrespective of dotmpas so keep a wary eye for galleys + OB decisions

Okay, I guess I'm going to continue with the revised dotmap. I think we will want to pick up yellow dot a bit quicker than we would have before, so I will try to start another settler before all is done.

5) 265BC

We start back up with a couple trades:

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/3307/bc0265trade1qy9.jpg

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/4230/bc0265trade3vy3.jpg

Our research goes to 100% and Literature is in 5

And then I decide I better gift Hunting to Ghandi because I can't think of any other way we'd get anything out of it

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/1785/bc0265trade2os5.jpg


6) 250BC

Settle Yarslavl' in the revised Blue Dot.

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/8453/bc0250altbluedotvs8.jpg

Ghandi has picked up Alphabet now.

7) 235BC

We get a disturbing message

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/8716/bc0235badneighborsye3.jpg

And our military is really thin too...

Meet Monte; he is just east of Fred.
Monte has Alphabet & Polytheism, and is up Archery & Meditation on us. He also has a lot of Ivory.

Our corner of the world is still largely ignorant of Alphabet: Hatty, Vicky, Julius, & Alex are all lacking.

8) 220BC

Hanging Gardens BIFAL [PIC]
Mao has picked up Mathematics

9) 205BC

Ghandi swaps to Organized Religion

10) 190BC

Literature is 2 turns away but oh-so-close to making it in 1. Swap around on builds; in the end I turn St. Pete to Research to get it in 1.

Okay, I'll stop on an even 10. Here are some pics of the known world. First the West:

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/4104/bc0190thewestnt4.jpg

In order to keep going west, we need to either open borders with Vicky or to go back south and open borders with Julius.

The East:

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/1561/bc0190theeasttd7.jpg

Monty won't open borders with us, so I've been going south through Fred's lands.

Next turn we Literature. Remember to take St. Pete's off of Research once we do.