Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 3 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

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 Civilization IV version 1.61, using the standard HoF Mod for Windows version 1.61. This is currently HOF_Mod-1.61.008 (http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mods/HOF-1.61.008.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. :)

Ha, first to sign in. ;)

Looking at the rules for the game a couple of things strike me:


AI Aggression - Aggressive
Permanent Alliances Enabled
No City Razing


The first is that establishing good relations with the AI for a diplo win may prove hard work. The second is that we will need to be careful capturing cities as we will have to keep them whether or not they are in a good position.

Turn 1a: 4000 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=4#63)
Turn 1b: 3970 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=5#84)
Turn 1c: 3970 BC - 3010 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=5#91)
Turn 2: 3010 BC - 2500 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=6#112)
Turn 3: 2500 BC - 1900 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=7#132)
Turn 4: 1900 BC - 1300 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=9#166)
Turn 5: 1300 BC - 1000 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=11#213)
Turn 6: 1000 BC - 850 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=12#233)
Turn 7a: 850 BC - 730 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=14#266)
Turn 7b: 730 BC - 700 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=14#280)
Turn 8: 700 BC - 550 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=16#302)
Turn 9: 550 BC - 400 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4886767#325)
Turn 10: 400 BC - 250 BC (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=193983&page=18#355)

Follow this link for turns 11 onwards (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=4847862#160)

Good morning, guys and welcome to our new members DynamicSpirit, Dagnabit and Htadus !:hatsoff:

My first thoughts for what it is worth:

As it is a standard, archipelago map with 17 civs :eek: I expect each civ to have its own island. According to the picture we may have space for 2 or 3 cities on our own island if the island does not have more room to the NE. From the picture I see that coast is running up the whole way N, but we cannot see what is in the NE, yet. As Sam already mentioned we have to choose carefully which cities we take as we have to keep them.

Settling in place would be my vote.

We start with mining and hunting. I do not think we have a chance to found an early religion with 17 rivals do we ?

I will try to play with World Builder to set up a test game later today.

Ello everyone! Ta for the welcome!

My initial thoughts:

Although we have a choice between diplo and spaceship win, I think we should be aiming at a diplo win, since that should be achievable long before a spaceship win. (I'm guessing Gyathaar intended spaceship as a backup if for some reason it becomes apparent a diplo win is not achievable. But I'd be very surprised if spaceship wins won the laurels). That means our strategy should be based on maximizing science while keeping enough other friends who'll vote for us. I've never quite figured out the best no. of cities is for maximizing science, but from the forums, I get the feeling there's a consensus that having 8-ish cities early on is good. But given the number of opponents we can be fairly sure there won't be space for 8 cities. I think we'll be lucky to get 3 good city sites before we're boxed in, may even be 2. I'm therefore inclined to think in terms of a militaristic start to try and get around 8 good city sites as soon as possible, then focus on science. Perhaps thereafter expand slowly with small wars that don't harm our science too much (the number of opponents should make that bit easier since noone else will be big enough to put up much of a fight). I agree with Sam that getting enough friends to vote for us in a diplo vote will be hard. I'd therefore suggest that we should aim to control a very substantial portion of the world's population by the time the diplo vote comes round. I also agree with Sam about city-capturing. In a funny way, that's probably one aspect in which the vanilla game will be tougher than the the warlords variant, since the AI's in warlords are going be a lot more sensible about city placement.

More short term, finding bronze/iron/horses is going to be particularly important. The crowded map means a high chance of our being stuck without any of those if we don't move very quickly to find out where they are.

In the very short term, I'm a great fan of worker-stealing - it can really give us a boost and at the same time cripple nearest neighbours (who we'll probably want to conquer anyway), so I would like to aim to do that asap (though that may turn out not to be possible if we're alone on an island). OTOH we are playing archipelago and that can give quite big islands so I'm not prejudging whether we're alone at this point. Worker stealing and then keeping a small stack (2 archers or 1 archer + 1-2 warriors) in the opponent's land to stop them doing anything can be *extremely* powerful, and may be particularly worth considering here because of the no-city-razing rule: We probably want as far as possible to stop near-neighbours founding cities so that *we* get to choose where our future cities will be placed :mischief: ). Doing worker-stealing may need to mean we prioritize archery though.

In terms of starting spot, I'm loathe to settle on floodplains for obvious reasons, especially in what's going to be a science-dominated game, but there are those two clam there. It also strikes me that this starting spot isn't quite as good as it looks: Two of the resources are useless until calendar. The fact that it's got 4 resources already, combined with pre-guessing Gyathaar's cunning makes me feel fairly strongly suspect it won't have any strategic resources too near. And given the proximity of land to the west and how crowded this map is, I think there is a small risk that we'll find we are fighting for control of the westernmost clam. OTOH I can't see much in the way of better spots. Personally I'm not yet convinced either way, but I'd like to throw up for discussion the possibility of settling on what looks to me like a grassland tile 2E of the settler. (Such a start would probably run: Move settler 1E (not 2E) on first turn (so he's in a position to settle on turn 2 for quite a few possible decisions). Move the scout SE to check out that land (and if necessary S again on turn 2). If we see sea resources further east or south then settle on the grassland. If not, then I'm not sure.

Personally I'm not yet convinced either way, but I'd like to throw up for discussion the possibility of settling on what looks to me like a grassland tile 2E of the settler. (Such a start would probably run: Move settler 1E (not 2E) on first turn (so he's in a position to settle on turn 2 for quite a few possible decisions). Move the scout SE to check out that land (and if necessary S again on turn 2). If we see sea resources further east or south then settle on the grassland. If not, then I'm not sure.

Surely the scout and settler are going to be revealing the same tiles on your plan? Wouldn't it be better for the scout to head NE to the 4 hammer hill (which looks like a Gyathaar special) to see what's north?

Hello to all. Too much good food the past couple days to engage the brain fully but did manage to play some turns on the start posted in one of the other threads. I agree we will have to get our first couple cities out quickly and be prepared to take any cities that are close and fit our needs. A diplomatic victory in some ways may be harder (although quicker) necessitating destroying more Civs to insure we have sufficient pop to control vote. With aggressive Civs I don't see how we can stay passive as we will most likely have at least one grumpy neighbor. I agree an early religion is iffy and early BW, Archery Horse are crucial. Getting a workboat/galley out to meet other Civs quickly may be second as with this many CIVs tech trading could be huge. Also I am sure we will be needing to transport troops/settlers sooner than in a lot of games. Not sure about where to settle yet but would suggest workboat/worker/Chop Settler/warrior to start. BW followed by Horse Techs (if no copper) then sailing,farming.

Surely the scout and settler are going to be revealing the same tiles on your plan? Wouldn't it be better for the scout to head NE to the 4 hammer hill (which looks like a Gyathaar special) to see what's north?

In terms of scouting for max. land, yes you're absolutely right (I guess you mean E-NE) (In my suggestion, I wasn't thinking of the settler scouting, more positioning him for max. flexibility in city placement 2nd turn, but on further reflection that might not be good, and perhaps we should be prepared to wait a couple of turns before settling anyway in order to find out what kind of land we're on?).

Other random thoughts: I guess it's crucial for early strategy to know whether we are on a small island or on something bigger. And if we are on a small island, we may want to be very careful about city placement. Would we want to work it so we can fit two cities on the island? And I note the settler-start position is good for commerce and poprushing but pretty iffy for (non-poprushed) hammers.

btw what do you mean by '4 hammer hill? That looks to me like a standard plains-hill-forest (3 hammers)

As it is a standard, archipelago map with 17 civs :eek: I expect each civ to have its own island. According to the picture we may have space for 2 or 3 cities on our own island if the island does not have more room to the NE. From the picture I see that coast is running up the whole way N, but we cannot see what is in the NE, yet. As Sam already mentioned we have to choose carefully which cities we take as we have to keep them.


I tried a couple of standard archipelago maps. The first one I was on a snaky type island with three other civs. The second one I was by myself but with lots of larger islands (with civs) within reach by galley.

I don't think we can assume all civs will have their own island. It's far more likely that we'll have at least one, if not more, islands with two or more civs.

Whilst it's nice to start with mining and hunting it does mean that we lack the basic starting techs such as the Wheel, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry so we'll probably have to self research those. Obviously getting Sailing is a priority as well. That single coast tile to the NW looks like a hint to me. All in all we have quite a bit of research to do. Choosing the order of research should be interesting. ;)

EDIT: Just realised I haven't even mentioned BW and if necessary archery.

My tech order suggestion would be Fishing>BW>Sailing

I think that we need to prioritize research and contact above anything else early on. That means being able to work the coast and whip workboats for exploration.

I think we need to build 2 exploring workboats to go in opposite directions from our island.

Also, like Simon, I'm not sure about settling in place. I never like using up a floodplain or a forest...but more importantly, space may be at a premium, and if it looks like we could fit a couple good cities in that area rather than 1 great one, we may want to try doing that. I'd suggest exploring the south coast with our settler the first turn, and sending the scout to the wooded 3 hammer hill. We should be able to see a large portion of coast and the rest(or at least most) our our island then and be better able to judge where to settle.

We may want to settle 2E. that gives us both floodplains, forests, spice, 1 clam, and some unknowns to the E of it. Then we could fit a city N next to the other spice and a city on the W island could get that second clam.

We should take out a couple at least AIs, but we should prioritize contact and diplomacy. Resource trading as soon as possible is a must, even if we have to trade our only source of them. Finally, if we've got copper on our island, we could do some early cross-island warring, otherwise we may want to wait for macemen.

Something else to discuss is whether we want to try to take advantage of the philosophical trait that Peter has. Do we want to run a specialist economy? Perhaps try for the Parthenon and gear our research around the techs that the AI won't research and that GP will? We definitely want an Engineer or two that we can keep around to build the UN.

Do we go for an early Lighthouse/Colossus? Oracle slingshot of some kind? Pyramids for Representation and GE points?

Hopefully early next week I'll run some tests to see how achievable it is to build wonders with this setup.

My tech order suggestion would be Fishing>BW>Sailing


I concur that fishing is a good tech to go for first. The real benefit of fishing is that once we have it, we can work sea tiles, which means that whatever we decide to research next we can do much more quickly if an urgent need arises. I'd like to know more of the map before making a decision on what should come after fishing.

First unit to build has surely gotta be a warrior (coz, umm, until we get fishing, what else could it be? :crazyeye: )


I think we need to build 2 exploring workboats to go in opposite directions from our island.


I'm more wary, though open to pursuasion. I totally agree on the need for contact, but realistically, on a map this crowded, our nearest neighbours will prob contact us soon enough without our devoting too many resources to finding them. And prior to writing/open borders, how far past our nearest neighbours will our workboats get...? OTOH we do need to get our nearby terrain mapped out ASAP to find resources etc.


Also, like Simon, I'm not sure about settling in place. I never like using up a floodplain or a forest...but more importantly, space may be at a premium, and if it looks like we could fit a couple good cities in that area rather than 1 great one, we may want to try doing that. I'd suggest exploring the south coast with our settler the first turn, and sending the scout to the wooded 3 hammer hill. We should be able to see a large portion of coast and the rest(or at least most) our our island then and be better able to judge where to settle.


Would it work if whoever gets the first play moves the scout to that hill and the settler E-SE as you suggest, then plays the scout (not settler) 2nd turn as appropriate, depending what is seen from the hill, then posts a screenshot so we can then discuss best place to settle?


Something else to discuss is whether we want to try to take advantage of the philosophical trait that Peter has. Do we want to run a specialist economy? Perhaps try for the Parthenon and gear our research around the techs that the AI won't research and that GP will? We definitely want an Engineer or two that we can keep around to build the UN.


My own view is that philosophical makes the parthenon less useful not more useful. Without philosophical, you get 50% more GPPs for having the parthenon. (Which actually translates to 20-30% more great people over the course of a full game because of the way each great person gets more expensive). With philosophical, you get 100% extra GPPs without parthenon, or 150% with parthenon, so building the parthenon only gives you an additional 25%. Which is probably something like 15% more great people (Of course that's 15% of a bigger number :) )

I think we certainly do want to take advantage of the philosophical trait by setting up a city somewhere as a great person farm, but I'm not sure there's much benefit to doing more than that. I'm with you on making sure we get a great engineer at some point.

First unit to build has surely gotta be a warrior (coz, umm, until we get fishing, what else could it be? )

Worker? However I agree that a warrior is a good first build, partly so we have some defence and also to let the city grow.



I think we need to build 2 exploring workboats to go in opposite directions from our island.

I'm more wary, though open to pursuasion. I totally agree on the need for contact, but realistically, on a map this crowded, our nearest neighbours will prob contact us soon enough without our devoting too many resources to finding them. And prior to writing/open borders, how far past our nearest neighbours will our workboats get...? OTOH we do need to get our nearby terrain mapped out ASAP to find resources etc.

I can appreciate the thinking. Circumavigation is always nice to have. OTOH workboats do take a while to build. If we're thinking about an early war or two then barracks do tend to help. ;)


Would it work if whoever gets the first play moves the scout to that hill and the settler E-SE as you suggest, then plays the scout (not settler) 2nd turn as appropriate, depending what is seen from the hill, then posts a screenshot so we can then discuss best place to settle?


As I was intending to post a similar suggestion I think this is a good idea. Can I also suggest that grid lines and resources are turned on when the screenshot is taken. It really does give more info.

If we're talking about wonders then the Oracle for Metal Casting or Code of Laws is also worth considering. However for all wonders it really depends on whether we have two or more productive cities as we don't really want to tie up our only productive city.

The reason I thought 2 workboats, is because of the fact that in my tech line BW would quickly be finished if we were using the clams for faster research. Then we would revolt to Slavery and just whip out both workboats...it only takes 2 turns and 1 pop to whip a workboat out.

We should definitely send one out, I thought perhaps two, but it is true that they'll be blocked by culture until we get OB with people anyway.

Oracle for MC would be good because it would give us the chance for an early Colossus, which would really kickstart our research on an archipelago map. The least risky wonders to go for are going to be Lighthouse and Colossus-they require a lighthouse and forge to be built, which means it takes forever for the AI to bother building them. Oracle would be nice, but it might be hard to get with all the spiritual and industrious civs out there.

A Worker or settler should wait until we've got the clams upgraded so we can get a large amount of food for the worker/settler.

Edit: I also agree that doing the exploring and then posting the new screenshot is a great idea. It'll help make sure we get the best location for what we want out of the game.

Edit2: mark or Sam, which of you is our 'captain' or 'spokesman'? Have we contacted Htadus yet?

I fully agree that the first player will do a little scouting and posts a screenshot for the team to decide where to settle.

As first build I would also go for a warrior. Remember what happened to team FUBAR in SGOTM2 ;) although we have a slightly different situation here.

I think I have to start on studying wonders.:) I tend to not build any in my single player games, so I am not that used to their effects.

Do we need a captain ?

If we do not hear anything from Htadus until tomorrow I will PM him.

Do we need a captain ?

If we do not hear anything from Htadus until tomorrow I will PM him.

I think AlanH usually likes to have a nominated contact point. Although usually he has nominated somebody in the team lists and it's then up to the team to agree whether they'll go with that person or someone else. I don't really mind being nominated but I'm not that bothered if mark or Thrallia wants it. Especially since our past captains seem to have been struck down by a hoodoo. ;)

I actually PM'd Htadus yesterday. However since he hadn't logged in since Nov. 21 it may not have been seen yet.

Gythaar answered a question in the maintenance thread that the map was archepelago and not small islands. I think there is a high probability of having 1 Civ (and maybe more) very close. This would lend itself to a quick worker steal if available, but more importantly makes a settler an early priority. Not only does a second city keep us from getting hemmed in before we are ready to take out our neighbor but lends itself to working on an early wonder quicker if we go down that path. I think build order of warrior(barracks) until we can get a workboat makes sense, but then I would build a worker, chop a settler and chop another warrior. BW to follow fishing then sailing followed by worker techs leading to horse. I think we will be extremely lucky to find copper close and will have to "borrow it" from a neighbor.

If early exploring doesn't find a Civ close then I think it would be safe enough to chop a workboat (or galley) for exploring. We should be closer to researching Writing by then to fully utilize the boat(s) with open borders. QUESTION? -Do we try and open borders with all Civs as soon as possible or are there some we should wait on?

I think there is a high probability of having 1 Civ (and maybe more) very close.

It has to be like this. It is a standard map as an archipelago and 17 rivals + ourselves. There will not be too much room.

I also wonder how aggressive the AIs will be in the beginning. If we have a close neighbour and we go for a worker first would an AI declare war that soon to take us out ? Does anybody have any experience with such a scenario ?

I also wonder how aggressive the AIs will be in the beginning. If we have a close neighbour and we go for a worker first would an AI declare war that soon to take us out ? Does anybody have any experience with such a scenario ?

As I recall you get a hidden -1 on relations. According to Blake's Better AI thread a prerequisite for an AI declaring war is that their movement is blocked. There are number of other conditions that have to be met before an AI declares war but apparently that is the first. Didn't we have aggressive AI in the last game? :confused: I'll have to check.

EDIT: Just checked and yes we did have aggressive AI. Of course there was a bit more real estate available in that game. While playing a test game I was backstabbed by Monty (who else?) and he really was not willing to make peace either.

well in the last SGOTM, Izzy declared war on us for no apparent reason at least twice lol

Dagnabit's build order sounds good, although I'd stress us building two workboats and either using one on the clams and exploring with the other, or using both on clams for very fast building of workers and settlers(if we end up settling in place, that is)...If I recall, they'd both give us +5 food, so we'd have something like 10 food/hammers going toward workers/settlers very quickly.

as for a captain, I also don't think we really need one other than the fact that Alan likes having one person to go to per team. I guess I could do that, but I'd prefer Sam or mark, as they are the 'oldest' geezers, and my attendance last SGOTM suffered sometimes :p

We've had a number of posts so far discussing a range of subjects. I thought I would try and summarise what seems to be mostly agreed, what we know and what's outstanding together with my thoughts.

Agreed/Mostly agreed

Move scout to 3 hammer hill (not sure why I thought it was 4 hammers) and move settler 1E.
Post screenshot of land discovered so far (preferably with grid lines and resources switched on). Team then discusses further.
Warrior as first build seems to have general agreement.
Start Fishing as first tech. Bronze working suggested as second tech with Sailing as third tech.


What's known

Judging by the directions of the resource indicator arrows we are south of the equator.
Known facts posted by Gyathaar. Map is archipelago. Goody huts removed on starting island.

Outstanding Issues

Where do we settle? - As stated above we are waiting for the screenshot. Interesting that nobody has mentioned settling on the three hammer hill.
What is our second build? - Worker has been suggested. As our city may not have grown to two by then perhaps we might start a workboat and then switch to worker when we grow.
What is our second tech? - I'm happy with the idea of BW. If, as I suspect, we find no copper on our island then I would suggest Agriculture and Animal Husbandry next to see if we have horses for chariots. An alternative would be Archery and Sailing to visit othr islands.
Do we want to go for a wonder or two and if so what? - Stonehenge is a possibilty to grow our city borders but getting Mysticism and building obelisks is probably better. The Great Lighthouse, Colossus and the Oracle have all been mentioned. My view is that we want a couple of productive cities to go down this route.
Who do we have OB with? - We can't have OB until we get Writing. If we haven't settled our island by then I would be inclined to say no until that's done unless it turns out to be quite large. After that I think it will depend on who's asking and how powerful they are rather than a blanket yes.
Who's captain/nominated contact? - I don't mind doing it but I've no problem if mark or Thrallia want to do it instead.

EDIT: Crossposted with Thrallia. I've left my original post unaltered. I won't be surprised if I've overlooked something. :)

Having another go at playing a map with 17 civs. As far as diplo goes I've decided that trying to keep track of who likes whom and trying to avoid demerits for 'trading with our worst enemy' and 'refusing to stop trading with our worst enemy' is going to be a real bummer. :cry:

perhaps we should consider a backdoor diplo victory :p the downside to that being that warfare on archipelago maps is generally a strategic, logistical, and tactical nightmare.

perhaps we should consider a backdoor diplo victory :p the downside to that being that warfare on archipelago maps is generally a strategic, logistical, and tactical nightmare.

... and the very fact of doing all that warring could damage our science so we'll end up with enough population but unable to build the UN at any reasonable date :( (The thought had occurred to me too)

Hi each and all.

Just for introductions sake, I am new to Civ4. So I will be doing alot of listening untill I feel my way around. I am located in California and have been dreading moving from Civ3 to 4. Too bad because C4 is turning out to be a truely dynamic game.



..... we have a choice between diplo and spaceship win, I think we should be aiming at a diplo win, since that should be achievable long before a spaceship win. (I'm guessing Gyathaar intended spaceship as a backup if for some reason it becomes apparent a diplo win is not achievable. But I'd be very surprised if spaceship wins won the laurels). .....


@ Dynamic....
Having played some of the Civ3 nightmares Gythaar has put forth, I would not be surprised that the Diplo game is not easily done. We will have to play a very cunning game or just research like a bat out of hell to get to space.

Diplo win might be quite difficult, but I am really not an expert on that. I am a jerk in diplomacy. :) Obviously we should aim to cripple/eliminate all the AIs that do not like us.

Regarding the captain I wouldn't mind doing it.

Regarding the captain I wouldn't mind doing it.

Done. :) Send a PM to AlanH to let him know.

Hi each and all.

Just for introductions sake, I am new to Civ4. So I will be doing alot of listening untill I feel my way around. I am located in California and have been dreading moving from Civ3 to 4. Too bad because C4 is turning out to be a truely dynamic game.


Welcome to the team Htadus. :)

welcome Htadus, looking forward to us keeping all 6 players this time :D

Gyathaar updated the screenshot to include the blue circles...for whatever that's worth, the place where the settler starts has one and the plains square 1E of our scout has one.

Interestingly, that location puts it just out of reach of every resource we can see, loses 1 of the FP, and gains 2 forests and a jungle, from what we can tell. This tells us our instincts to explore over there with our scout before settling is a good one though. Sending our scout to that wooded hill should give us all the information we need about where to settle.

I managed to finish GOTM12 last night, finally got another win to submit, after having to retire the last few that I was close to a win in for lack of time :(
Hopefully this means I'll have time to run a test game for this setup tonight.

Regarding the difficulty of a diplo win, if we've got enough resources and there's a single dominant religion it shouldn't be too hard...we just have figure out what religion is most widespread, and then do our best to spread it around ourselves, even if we didn't found it.

Hi each and all.
Just for introductions sake, I am new to Civ4. So I will be doing alot of listening untill I feel my way around. I am located in California and have been dreading moving from Civ3 to 4. Too bad because C4 is turning out to be a truely dynamic game.


Well I guess you've chosen a good way to learn about Civ4 :-) Welcome! FWIW I got Civ4 about a year ago. I've been playing GOTMs regularly since March, but this is my first experience of an SGOTM and being part of a team.


@ Dynamic....
Having played some of the Civ3 nightmares Gythaar has put forth, I would not be surprised that the Diplo game is not easily done. We will have to play a very cunning game or just research like a bat out of hell to get to space.

(btw there's someone else in one of the other teams called Dynamic; because of that, I try to discourage people from abbreviating my name to 'Dynamic')

Diplo does take a lot of skill. However, one good thing is that until you get well into the AD years, the strategies for spaceship and diplo are pretty much identical: In both cases you need to research as fast as possible. The additional requirement for diplo is that it's a good idea to get to build the UN yourself, and you need to get enough votes (I think you need votes representing about 62% of the population to win). You can get that yourself by conquering, but if you do that you'll slow down your research - that puts us at high risk of being beaten to the laurels by a team that focuses on their research more. Or you can do less conquering but make sure sufficient other civs like you enough to vote for you - that means keeping some friends. It also means trying to manipulate things so that whoever the 2nd biggest civ is is unpopular, so noone votes for him.

The vast number of civs in the game does put an interesting slant on it. It means that we're going to be facing a lot of very small and weak opponents. From the POV of warmongering that's good - after we've 'absorbed' one or two neighbours, we'll probably be able to destroy at will almost anyone we choose (and no prolonged wars causing war-weariness). But from a science side that's bad, as it makes it likely that the AIs will get quite backward: There just won't be enough space for any of them to reach the optimal size for research - and normally in Civ4, trading techs with your friends is a good way to keep your own science running fast. Of course that problem is going to hit all the teams, not just us. It does occur to me though that there may be some advantage later on in going to war on behalf of other civs - selectively removing civs that don't like us, even ones on the other side of the world - specifically so that civs that do like us can take their land, so they can become more powerful, so we get reasonably advanced trading partners.

Not something we need to think about for a while yet, but just a thought for the future :)

It does occur to me though that there may be some advantage later on in going to war on behalf of other civs - selectively removing civs that don't like us, even ones on the other side of the world - specifically so that civs that do like us can take their land, so they can become more powerful, so we get reasonably advanced trading partners.


The bonus for 'mutual war' is another advantage of this ploy. :) As far as religion goes it's definitely worth waiting to see which civs adopt which religion. We just need to be careful about the late religions. I can remember being caught by my ally switching to a late religion that they had founded. :(

On the science front it would be nice if we can find a nice spot to found a GP farm. SGOTM01 showed the value of Hanging Gardens for Great Engineers (thanks trippstowe :goodjob: ). It also showed that one GE is not quite enough to build the UN in an epic game.

Welcome Htadus glad to have you on the team. Your entrance also solidifies my hold on the team "Noobie" award ( presented it to myself):D It looks like we have a cross section of time zones. UK, East Coast US, West Coast US. So when do I sleep when the drama begins?:lol:

Where were the blue circles added? I didn't see them at the start of our thread. I managed to play 2 test games last night to about 100BC. I under estimated the aggresiveness of the AIs (especially Monty). I was declared war on before I could solidify a third city and before I had horse or iron. (Jaquars make mincemeat of archers) Also Several AI had galleys out quickly (including Barbs)which played havoc with the nets. I didn't try for any early religions but teching seemed slow. The capital peaks at size 5 in the early going and because of the AI needed to whip troops most of the time. I think a barracks is crucial from the beginning. Another observation is the time to strike the AI is just after he sets a new city. Since we can't raze them it takes them with a minimal amount of force. Down side is no workers to take with a new city.

Where were the blue circles added? I didn't see them at the start of our thread.

See the maintenance thread. :p As an aside I would suggest that you subscribe to it and keep up to date with the posts in it. It doesn't take too much time.

Did that, thanks and also down loaded the new HOF mod1.61.009 for this SGOTM.

The saves will be available in less than two days now, maybe we should come up with our play order soon?

I'm going to be on vacation between December 16th and December 30th, so will need skips during that time period, at least, that's the plan right now.

As far as who starts our game, I'm willing to if no one else wants to...the 1st and 2nd are Friday and Saturday this week and I've got plenty of time those days to take care of our opening.

As far as who starts our game, I'm willing to if no one else wants to...the 1st and 2nd are Friday and Saturday this week and I've got plenty of time those days to take care of our opening.

Well, I just wanted to ask whether we have a volunteer for the first set. You answered my question right away.:)

My proposed roster would look like this :

Thrallia
Simon
Sam
Mark
Dagnabit
Htadus

Would this be ok ?

AlanH sent me a pm that he still has two unassigned vanilla players. Does anybody have any objection if we integrate another player ?

Do I take it the system is that each player plays a set number of turns (how many?) but pauses play and comes back to the group for discussion if some major strategic decision is called for or something really unexpected happens that needs a response?

Do I take it the system is that each player plays a set number of turns (how many?) but pauses play and comes back to the group for discussion if some major strategic decision is called for or something really unexpected happens that needs a response?

Yes that's how it works usually. The first set is played a little longer, 30 to 40 turns as normally not much happens anyway. Then we can go 20 turns for the first set of each player and once everybody had a set we take 10 turns each. It is not a must that you take the whole set. If you feel like it is better to hand over the game earlier or maybe a little later it is ok, too. Depends on the situations in the game. However it would be nice if you hand the game over at an even turn.

It is not a must that you come back to ask when something important happens, but usually it is done like that as it is a team game and different players may offer different ways to handle the given situations. If you decide on your own you may have to live with the criticism or of course the praising of your genious handling of the game.:)
This is more or less a team internal thing. We did stop when important things happened in the first two games and I think it strengthens the team spirit.

Yes that's how it works usually. The first set is played a little longer, 30 to 40 turns as normally not much happens anyway. Then we can go 20 turns for the first set of each player and once everybody had a set we take 10 turns each. <snip etc>

Thanks Mark!

One more organizational thing just to make sure everybody knows.

We'll do a "24h got it and 48h to play" rule. At around christmas we may enlarge the playtime to 72 hours as usually time is a little more limited at that time. The player on duty will also get extra time if he stops and asks questions during his turnset, so please feel free to ask if you are unsure what to do. This will not shorten your playtime.

If you know you will have no time to play please ask for a skip or a swap in time. Please do not go missing in action. You will get most of the fun and learning out of a SG if it moves forward and discussion stays alive.

As a general note for all new players please check everything a little more carefully than you might do in your single player games. I usually play much more careless in my single player games. You have to play just 10 turns, so it is not much work.

And of course : Let's have some fun !

Play order is fine by me. Are we leaving the turn count in the mod file set at default. Doesn't matter to me just want to be on same page.

Gyathaar is on record as saying about this SGOTM:


Next SGOTM will be a split competition, using same setup for both vanilla and warlords, players will have to choose one version to play in (I will try to set up the map so it will deliberately will play very different in the two versions... it will be interesting to see how the different versions will compare)


I'm wondering if that might give us clues about the map. What would you do if you were trying to make the map play differently in Vanilla and Warlords? Off the top of my head, I would:


Put horses nearby (chariot and horse-archer abilities are significantly changed in warlords)
Not put iron nearby (the change in chariots effects axemen more than swordsmen)
Where a Civ has more than one leader, pick the leader who is most changed in traits (Washington, Napoleon, Frederick, Gandhi, Victoria, Genghis Khan. China could go either way). Although that also implies picking Catherine, not Peter for Russia, contrary to what Gyathaar actually did.
Have lots of water (because of triremes) - as is the case.
Be somewhat generous in placing of stone/marble, to encourage building of the three new wonders.
Play a civ whose UU is changed in Warlords (yep, we have that).
Give more land to at least some leaders that are imperialistic or expansive in warlords, so their quick settlers/workers have maximum impact. (Washington, China if Mao Zedong, Victoria, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar)


Any others I haven't thought of?

Obviously all this may turn out to be completely wrong and useless. But it might give useful clues.

Play order is fine by me. Are we leaving the turn count in the mod file set at default.

I would say so. I even do not know how to change that.:crazyeye:

alright, I'll set back to 0 then :)

I was actually going to suggest we all change it to 4000BC is turn 1, that way when we hit a turn number like 10, 20, 30, etc. that means its time to turn over our game(at least, in general)

One thing that will help me using the HOF mod...is it keeps a turn counter at the top next to the year, so I shouldn't accidently go 11 or 12 turns anymore ;)

I'm wondering if that might give us clues about the map. What would you do if you were trying to make the map play differently in Vanilla and Warlords?


It might be as simple as changing which civs are nearby and which resources they have.

hm...that could be true, he never said the civ locations would be identical, only that the civs would identical.

Did he say that none of the new leaders would be used in warlords? Cause from what I've heard Augustus Caesar is worse to be against than Julius.

Here's a thought too...put us on a semi-large island with someone like Vicky who is a pain on vanilla, but would be even worse on Warlords as she gets +50% settler production. That'd make it a race between the team and Vicky to see what won out, faster worker production or faster settler production for taking over the island.

I played a little with WB. Here is what I got. Anybody who is interested could play a little bit with it.

I made 3 test runs founding Moscow on the starting spot and going for an early religion. All 3 times I was 1 turn short founding Hinduism, but I could found Judaism each time, so an early religion might be possible. If we agree to go that route we could have a shot at it. Still we have to see the surroundings first whether there is a better spot, but from the commercial/research side the starting position is not too bad.

I made 3 test runs founding Moscow on the starting spot and going for an early religion. All 3 times I was 1 turn short founding Hinduism, but I could found Judaism each time, so an early religion might be possible. If we agree to go that route we could have a shot at it. Still we have to see the surroundings first whether there is a better spot, but from the commercial/research side the starting position is not too bad.

Presumably your idea is to use religion to expand our cities a la CFR? Or in other words we won't be converting to whatever religion we might found?

Obviously the question is what techs will be delayed by going for religion?

I played a little with WB. Here is what I got. Anybody who is interested could play a little bit with it.

I've only just loaded it up but I notice that you're not using the latest HOF mod (.8 instead of .9) that the game will be using. Time to start downloading. :)

Presumably your idea is to use religion to expand our cities a la CFR? Or in other words we won't be converting to whatever religion we might found?

Obviously the question is what techs will be delayed by going for religion?

Mainly I was just curious to see whether it is possible at all to found a religion with that many civs around. Founding a religion is very powerful, so it would be an option we should take into consideration.

I think I would prefer we take over a close neighbor who has founded a religion. I generally like founding religions, but with 17 AI, including every civ that starts with mysticism when we don't, I think any religion earlier than christianity or confuscianism may be too big a gamble.

I started 4 random test games today, saved them and started playing one of them...I didn't notice it was at normal speed until Greece was half conquered by my axes lol

It appears though that in most of my test games, the AI doesn't research sailing very quickly, and that most civs were on their own islands that were big enough for 2-4 cities. Greece happened to be alone on an island big enough for 6-8 cities, so I founded one and took 3 off Alex's hands early ;)

I floundered a little bit after going Fishing>BW>Sailing, as I wasn't sure what direction to go after that. In my test, I went AH>Masonry>Writing>Pottery>IW>Alpha, but I'm not sure that'll be something we want to do.

Writing will be important for early libraries and OB with civs, Pottery won't matter until we have workers, Masonry would be nice for the Great Lighthouse..and I actually found that you could build the Lighthouse in 1000BC and get a Great Merchant early enough that you could get Metal Casting from him before any of the AI had it yet, giving us some really good trade bait.

Also, wonders go fast...on islands the AI doesn't have a lot of extraneous stuff to build, so industrious civs start building wonders fast. Stonehenge was built before 1800BC, and the Oracle was built in 1300BC.

On the plus side, I think I did a bad job overall of teching up through about 100AD, and I had a tech lead over the AI somehow. I don't think the vanilla AI is able to take advantage of sea-based commerce very well.

Regarding religions I think it will depend a bit where we settle. If we settle in place we will have good commerce and good research capabilities, so we might have a shot at it. If we move the settler to a not that commercial area we probably have to take another route. We have to wait what you present to us tomorrow.:)
Maybe I will create another test game this evening.

Either route will be a gamble. :crazyeye: If we do not have copper around I am not sure that we can take on other AIs very quickly.

I think I'm probably with Thrallia on the early religions. Being able to nab Judaism is an intriguing idea (and I agree having a religion is powerful) but it also means we go a long time without knowing worker techs, or where resources are. Given the AI's lack of skill at dealing with lots-of-water maps I don't think we'll have too much trouble capturing the nearest holy city, wherever that is.

If the AI doesn't get sailing fast, that may give us an opportunity to build the great lighthouse, but only if we can get a city with relatively high production early on. Lighthouse-metal-casting-colossus would certainly be a oowerful combination, but there is still the issue of sacrificing production of workers/settlers. How big an issue that is depends on how quickly the AI grabs the available land and/or whether we can get an early war. The no-city-razing thing does I think make it relatively more favourable for us to found cities (as opposed to capturing them) since we'll probably do a lot better than the AI at city placement. That tends to favour our getting settlers out as fast as possible, and to disfavour anything that detracts from that.

Lighthouse-metal-casting-colossus would certainly be a oowerful combination, but there is still the issue of sacrificing production of workers/settlers.

That appears to be very tempting. :)

Regarding workers/settlers I do not know whether we have to expand really fast. We have to play a fast research game due to the preset victory conditions and as Thrallia I experienced that the AI was not researching sailing very quickly. Workers will be an issue as soon as we have scouted the surroundings a bit. If we do not have much useful around workers might not be a very high priority in the beginning.:dunno:

We have lots of forests around, so we could chop settlers quickly as soon as we have researched BW.

If we have an AI on our island we also have to rethink our strategy.

hm...that could be true, he never said the civ locations would be identical, only that the civs would identical.

Did he say that none of the new leaders would be used in warlords? Cause from what I've heard Augustus Caesar is worse to be against than Julius.


I've queried it in the maintenance thread now. AlanH says the maps and leaders are identical in the two versions.


Here's a thought too...put us on a semi-large island with someone like Vicky who is a pain on vanilla, but would be even worse on Warlords as she gets +50% settler production. That'd make it a race between the team and Vicky to see what won out, faster worker production or faster settler production for taking over the island.

Neat! :)

In a couple test starts, IW became mandatory relatively early because of all the jungle. I couldn't get Judism if going for IW after sailing,bw, AH. I played around with a different tactic to see the effect. Namely in one start I beelined for 2-3 galleys and built settlers, warriors and went west and north settling island and penninsula effectively cutting off any exloration route for AI until AD. Starting location allowed for enough whipped troops to take 2 close cities and secure iron. If we are thinking great light house/collossus, a sea based empire might let us harrass more AI without having to actually take any cities. Don't know how the maintenance costs of this strategy will hinder research rate.

:blush: Sorry about double post:blush: What do you make of the increase to +3 health for Peter. I don't think I used that in the test games from the pregame discussion threat test games. Health did become a limiting factor at around 5-6 pop in early game. Do you suppose it will be limiting enough that we will be forced to "borrow";) lots of it from the AI in order to grow sufficiently to use hammers and increase research rates to competitive level?

If we want a religion we have to go straight for it. Settling in a commercial area and go fishing, myst, poly, masonry, mono. There will be no other chance IMO. The downside of this is slow expansion.

If we go for early expansion then I wouldn't go for any religious techs and trade for them later on. Worker techs will be more important in that scenario and researching towards The Great Lighthouse, Collossus.

What do you make of the increase to +3 health for Peter. I don't think I used that in the test games from the pregame discussion threat test games. Health did become a limiting factor at around 5-6 pop in early game. Do you suppose it will be limiting enough that we will be forced to "borrow";) lots of it from the AI in order to grow sufficiently to use hammers and increase research rates to competitive level?

I remember GOTM8 was playing an expansive Civ (also on archipelago/monarch, coincidentally). The main result of the extra health was I scarcely built a single aquaduct the whole game, or any other building where my intention in building it was to solve health issues. Health just wasn't an issue almost the entire game. Other than that it didn't really do much, other than avoid the slower growth between the point where you've become unhealthy and the point where you actually build the aquaduct (or grocer or whatever). Have to say I don't regard it as a particularly useful trait, other perhaps than for settling in strongly jungle/floodplain areas.

so how many people can be here at midnight server time tonight? ;) If we could get most of us here then I'd be able to play more than just our first turn tonight :)

Oh, the server is at GMT -5, which means East Coast US.

so how many people can be here at midnight server time tonight? ;) If we could get most of us here then I'd be able to play more than just our first turn tonight :)

Oh, the server is at GMT -5, which means East Coast US.

That's 05:00 to me and I normally get up at about 06:00.

alright...downloading the new HOF mod now...in about 15 minutes I should be able to download the save.

Here for Moral support!:banana: :bounce: :dance: Lets get this party started![party] It's almost time to kick Butt and take names:ar15: Youngest Geezer go and make us proud! :thumbsup: :woohoo:

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/9033/capitoldilemma0000oy2.th.jpg (http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capitoldilemma0000oy2.jpg)

ok, so we've got two great city sites available...our original starting location has 3 spices, 2 clams, and 1 FP along with 5 forests. Although if we chop those, it will basically have no production.

The other one, as far as I'm concerned, is actually to found the city on that hill the scout is on right now. That'd give us 1 clam, 1 fish, 1 stone, 5 forests and 3 visible hills for after chop production.

So we've got to decide, spend 3 more turns to settle on the production site, or spend 2 more turns to settle back where we started?

With just a one turn difference, and at least until Calendar, pretty much similar commerce but with a lot more production, I'd prefer going up North and coming back south again for our next city.

I'll wait to hear back from everyone on this, at least until tomorrow afternoon cause this is a big decision.

My vote is for original site and for a early settler if we are not going for Stonehenge with that stone. But if we are going for the Stonehenge get close to it. 4 tiles north of current position seem to be fine.

Is it even possible to go for a second city that may have a chance at building the stonehenge?

I highly doubt we can get Stonehenge even if we were to have stayed in place immediately. We've got what, 5 industrious civs against us? And if Gandhi is one of them, he's industrious and starts out with Mysticism so could build it immediately.

Is the hill n-ne of scout forest or Jungle? W is I think. Hard to tell from the screenie but it almost looks like we are on a small island, if not, a very narrow peninsula. Although the extra turns are painful I vote for the increased production. 14-15 raw hammers is a little better than OK and the seafood will get us going quickly. A worker sooner also me thinks. Warrior until workboat,work clams,worker,chop workboat, chop settler,chop workboat for second city south. Tech for the fishing boat, then BW. First impulses.

Well I did post earlier that I wondered why nobody had suggested settling on that hill. :) Joking aside, the extra initial production from the hill does make up for the delay in settling so I would support your suggestion of settling there. Settling 1N of our starting position for the second city seems a good idea. However that can be decided once we explore a bit more more.

Bear in mind that we can start research into Fishing now.

Is the hill n-ne of scout forest or Jungle? W is I think. Hard to tell from the screenie but it almost looks like we are on a small island, if not, a very narrow peninsula. Although the extra turns are painful I vote for the increased production. 14-15 raw hammers is a little better than OK and the seafood will get us going quickly. A worker sooner also me thinks. Warrior until workboat,work clams,worker,chop workboat, chop settler,chop workboat for second city south. Tech for the fishing boat, then BW. First impulses.

N-NE is jungle, sorry, I've got Blue Marble installed and zoomed out a bit too far, I think. W of the scout is jungle as well. I expect to find either a civ N of where the scout is or at most room for 2 more coastal cities.

Well I did post earlier that I wondered why nobody had suggested settling on that hill. :) Joking aside, the extra initial production from the hill does make up for the delay in settling so I would support your suggestion of settling there. Settling 1N of our starting position for the second city seems a good idea. However that can be decided once we explore a bit more more.

Bear in mind that we can start research into Fishing now.

we actually cannot start research until we found a city. As for our second city, I kinda like the original position, it'll only have a 1 tile overlap with our capital, and both will have huge growth potential, with one being a good production city, the other being a great commerce city, especially once we get the Colossus.

If we want to hold on to the forests for a bit and are on a narrow defendable peninsula,I might be inclined to tech to sailing first, build a galley and take a couple warriors East or west to quickly find close Civ and maybe steal a worker while we try and get City 2 put in place.

we actually cannot start research until we found a city.


You are incorrect. :nono: Research can start immediately. Check out some of the SGOTM02 starts if you don't believe me. :) Just make sure you don't open any of the SGOTM03 threads by accident. :eek:


As for our second city, I kinda like the original position, it'll only have a 1 tile overlap with our capital, and both will have huge growth potential, with one being a good production city, the other being a great commerce city, especially once we get the Colossus.

I suggested 1N as that means we keep both the flood plains.

I am quite twisted on the two possibilities.:crazyeye:

I would slightly favour the original start position for the increased commerce and faster growth potential thus faster research.

So we have (if I got it right)

3 votes for the production site
2 votes for the original site

Let's see what Simon orders.:)

3 votes for the production site
2 votes for the original site

Let's see what Simon orders.:)

Simon has only just woken up and is still half-asleep, so wants another hour or so before committing himself definitely. However he's definitely erring towards the production site. He observes that the high commerce potential of the original site is partially dependant on having pottery (then later, calendar), but noone's yet proposed researching towards pottery immediately. He also observes that one of his predictions about Gyathaar's map has come true (the stone).

Well, we are not in a hurry and do not have to rush through it. :nope: The start is most important, so we we should take our time here and everybody should state his opinion and views on it.

I vote for settling on the hill the scout is on. (But: While the settler is moving, Thrallia should keep exploring, I suggest N-NW on turn 2, to make doubly sure that no reason turns up to make the hill a bad move, eg. that it excludes a resource west of the scout). That gives us a high production capital.

I further suggest iinitial production of: warrior-workboat-workboat-settler (assuming circumstances don't force us to build more military early on). If we produce two workboats as soon as we can to work the fish/clam, we'll then be able to use all that food to build a settler very quickly to settle the original starting spot as a commerce centre. Even better: The high production of the capital means it can help the 2nd city off to a good start by building at least one of its workboats for it. I know this means delaying sending a workboat exploring, which is significant, but I think the benefits of getting both a good production and a good commerce centre going early on outweigh that.

My suggestion also runs against conventional wisdom that you build a worker before a settler. I think that's justified here because

The amount of sea-resources we've got allows rapid settler-build
In the early game, there's not actually that much a worker can do on the current start, other than chop. (And I've always been a lot more wary of early chopping for settlers ever since chopping got nerfed with the last patch. I'm not totally convinced the relatively small number of turns it now saves you is worth losing forest that could later have been chopped for great library or something similar. And if the capital is to be a production centre for the time being, keeping the forests there may be good anyway).
There's always the possibility of stealing a worker.

So, we are agreed on the settling spot.

I agree on the production path. There is not much a worker could do at this stage and the clams and fishes are good food suppliers. The other positive thing is that the capital can grow while building the workboats.

What about our tech path ? Fishing is obvious. BW, too I think.

When can animal barbs appear ? It would quite embarrassing if our settler is eaten on the way to the hill. :lol:

[quote=DynamicSpirit;4826067
My suggestion also runs against conventional wisdom that you build a worker before a settler. I think that's justified here
[/quote]

I agree. I also see the value of keeping forests as long as possible (until Math if we can). My thoughts on chopping were purely thinking speed of getting second City running. I don't have enough experience to weigh cost/benefit so can easily defer building worker. It starts to get a little dicey IMHO after the third workboat. Worker or warrior next? If the scout is still alive and few Civs known by then I would go worker, if Civs close-Warrior.

With Delaying worker I lean towards getting Sailing before BW and not sure how soon to start worker techs. (Or do we head to Alpha and assume we will have enough trading AIs in the early game to pick them up?)

Noticed "Footballguys" are quickly out of the gate on results page.

When can animal barbs appear ? It would quite embarrassing if our settler is eaten on the way to the hill. :lol:

Certainly not before turn 10 so there should be no problems there. Even if there's a hostile civ nearby we should settle in time. Getting a warrior for defense in time would be another matter. :lol:

EDIT: I know Thrallia is keen to motor on but perhaps it might be worth posting another screenshot when he's explored a bit more. I realise that this is a bit of change from our earlier games but perhaps it's no bad thing.

Noticed "Footballguys" are quickly out of the gate on results page.

Sums up footy guys in general doesn't it? :p :lol::lol: Though I suppose they're American football guys so apologies if I've offended anyone.

I agree that another screenshot soonish would be good. It may be that the further exploration changes our minds on where to put the 2nd city. The results of the exploration will certainly be important in deciding how early we need to prioritize sailing.

On research, I'm happy with BW next, after fishing. I want to find out where the resources are.

btw, couple of suggestions: (@Thrallia: Apologies if these have already occurred to you anyway, but just in case).
1. I think once we have BW, a good time to revolt to slavery (assuming we don't need it earlier) is when the settler is on his way to found the 2nd city. That way the revolution only kills output in one city, but still doesn't delay production of the settler.
2. It may be worthwhile micromanaging during initial workboat production - even to the extent of killing growth for the sake of hammers - since we can get a lot more food/turn as soon as the workboat is built.

Sums up footy guys in general doesn't it? :p :lol::lol: Though I suppose they're American football guys so apologies if I've offended anyone.

:lol: I notice they've also done it with far less discussion than we've had so far. Couple of other teams submitted 1st saves too now.

nope, I think american football guys are probably more of a 'meathead' than european football guys are :)

I would have preferred going on ahead, but can definitely hit enter and explore a bit more and provide more screenies. I don't have to work today and classes were cancelled, so this is all the recreation I have to do :)(well, this and GOTM13....along with whatever chores my wife decides I have time to do today since I suddenly have an extra 7 hours lol)

btw, Sam, the reason you could do research in SGOTM2 is because we already had that island city set up.

I would have preferred going on ahead, but can definitely hit enter and explore a bit more and provide more screenies. I don't have to work today and classes were cancelled, so this is all the recreation I have to do :)(well, this and GOTM13....along with whatever chores my wife decides I have time to do today since I suddenly have an extra 7 hours lol)

Well there you go. If you don't keep stopping to talk to us, you'll suddenly find 20 minutes later that you've finished all your turns and having nothing to do for the rest of the day (other than GOTM13 of course) ;)

ok, here's a new screenshot for the northern expanse....of jungle

I think the forested hill we decided upon is the best course of action, if we go any farther north we run into lots of jungle and lose a fish resource.

btw, Sam, the reason you could do research in SGOTM2 is because we already had that island city set up.


:blush: Yes, you're right. My apologies for doubting you. :blush: :blush:

Nice! Looks from the resource bubbles like our scout has found the equator. And if there is another civ on our starting island (continent?) that jungle should deter it from settling too near us initially (which unfortunately may reduce some of the advantage we may have gained by settling on the hill, compared to any teams that settled in place :sad:). I don't see any reason in the new screenshot for Thrallia not to continue as planned.

I agree, to continue as planned. With all the jungle and needing IW to chop it I'm leaning towards sailing following BW. It may be easier to transport settlers etc. If a Civ isn't close then trying to steal a worker and get him back through jungle with Barbs licking there chops isn't easy. A dilema follows though. If no Copper do we beeline to IW or get worker techs started. Probably to soon to think about, but my mind is going nuts:crazyeye: trying to figure out what the evil world builder:devil: (dare I say his name?) has concocted.

Looks nice.:) I would say play 30 to 40 turns, Thrallia. Maybe until we have researched BW. Then we can have a look again and the next one can take over.

Nice! Looks from the resource bubbles like our scout has found the equator. And if there is another civ on our starting island (continent?) that jungle should deter it from settling too near us initially (which unfortunately may reduce some of the advantage we may have gained by settling on the hill, compared to any teams that settled in place :sad:).

Overall I still think settling on the hill is to our advantage compared to the inital spot.

I agree, to continue as planned. With all the jungle and needing IW to chop it I'm leaning towards sailing following BW. It may be easier to transport settlers etc. If a Civ isn't close then trying to steal a worker and get him back through jungle with Barbs licking there chops isn't easy. A dilema follows though. If no Copper do we beeline to IW or get worker techs started.

I think we need to bear in mind that part of our strategy was to focus on tech rather than try and steal a worker. Our increased production should let us get a settler fairly quickly to start working the flood plains. After that we need to start getting worker techs so that we can develop the flood plains. Let's wait until BW is in before worrying whether or not copper is nearby. :)

Looks nice.:) I would say play 30 to 40 turns, Thrallia. Maybe until we have researched BW. Then we can have a look again and the next one can take over.

Waiting until BW is researched sounds good to me. By then we should know what the island looks like and if we are sharing with any other civs.

sounds good, I'll finish up my set at some point today...my wife just told me to leave our computer room because she's christmas shopping...oh yeah, and she gave me a list of chores around the house. It might be nearly midnight server time before I am able to get done and play it out though :)

obviously, no rush, since I haven't even had the game 24 hours yet, just wanted to inform you all of that :)

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Geezers_SG003_BC3010_01.Civ4SavedGame)

Turn 1: Moved scout/settler posted pic for discussion
Turn 2: Moved scout and settler, posted pic for more discussion
Turn 3: I explore NW with the scout and find another possible city site, it has a lot of jungle but would eventually have gems and rice
Turn 4: I discover that the proposed site above would also include fish and cows! Moscow finally founded on the forest plains hill. Warrior only takes 6 turns to build!
Turns 5-7: There's a lot of gems up north in the jungles!
Turn 10: Moscow: Warrior>Warrior
Turn 11: Our scout survives an encounter with a lion while finding out we are actually on a pretty good sized island...the land we saw across the way from our original location is actually part of our own island!
Turn 13: Fishing discovered>BW started 23 turns for it. Moscow changes production to a workboat.
Turn 14: Mao is on the island across from our capitol. I saw his archer patrolling the coast.
Turn 21: Our island is completely mapped out and I see at least 5 good commerce sites thanks to all those gems although production may be a bit scarce. One decent site involves settling on top of a gem, but there's plenty of those for other cities.
Turn 22: Our island is officially dubbed 'Muskovy Isle' and a sign is placed in Muskovy Bay to advertise it as such
Turn 26: Workboat finishes and sets up camp on the clams. Moscow will grow to size 2 in two turns finally and another workboat has been started
Turn 27: Our scout survives its third encounter with wild animals, our warrior survives a fight with a deranged giraffe, and we meet Alex, who shares an island with Mao.
Turn 34: BW comes in and I set research to Sailing. Moscow will grow again in 6 turns, another workboat finishes in 4 turns, and our only source of copper is right next to our scout, within the fat cross of one of my proposed city sites.

I would propose we build two settlers immediately following the completion of this workboat. One to settle St. Petersburg in our original spot, the other to hop across the bay to the copper spot.

Neither one is very far away, although for the copper city we may want to wait until we've gotten some growth out of St. Petersburg to counter the distance upkeep. I do think Sailing should be next, perhaps followed by Writing>IW>Alphabet and then just trade for all the worker/religious techs we missed. We will want IW early to free up all those gems :goodjob: which means we'll need to whip out a couple workers when we get close to that point. I personally think that we've got a good shot at the Great Lighthouse too, although I'm not entirely sure where in our building we'll put it. Perhaps just chop it in St. Petersburg once we get workers.

Oh, and I made liberal use of the Civ Signs...I just found them today during a practice game and found them very cool :D

As a side note, Real Ms Beyond and footballguys both founded in place in 4000BC, the only other team to upload a save thus far is CFR and they did what we did it appears, took a turn to do nothing except scout the surrounding terrain. footballguys also appears to think this is a sprint not a marathon...as they're already up to 1330BC and only have 2x our current score.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Geezers_SG003_BC3010_01.Civ4SavedGame)
I would propose we build two settlers immediately following the completion of this workboat. One to settle St. Petersburg in our original spot, the other to hop across the bay to the copper spot.


Cool! Looks like I'm next so I'll go grab the save soon (or possibly tomorrow morning since it's 3.30am here in the UK)


As a side note, Real Ms Beyond and footballguys both founded in place in 4000BC, the only other team to upload a save thus far is CFR and they did what we did it appears, took a turn to do nothing except scout the surrounding terrain. footballguys also appears to think this is a sprint not a marathon...as they're already up to 1330BC and only have 2x our current score.

Uh???? How do you find out about where they settled? I thought we weren't supposed to know what the other teams were doing? :confused:

well, I checked out the graph on the submissions and progress page...and they were producing culture from turn 1, which means they couldn't have moved anything other than their scout before settling in place

we are allowed to use those graphs for info on other teams, but nothing else except for the spoiler pages that open up(btw, I nominate either Simon or Sam to write ours this time) ;)

Wow...are there any other hills?:blush:

This is going to be a hammer poor game it seem. Well for our goals gold is a good thing to have anyway.

By the way when do the Barb war/archers show up? About now is it not?

I am in favor of settling to claim the copper asap and IW following Sailing. There are way too many jungles out there.

On a side note. I just started my first c4otm.( any Civ4 game ever for that matter)..the anticipation and the suspension of tech and GW chase is a killer. I bearly fell asleep afterwords.
Sorry...I just had to let it out.:D Civ4 is a great game.

I just down loaded the save and will post once I look at it.

Initial thought is why haven't we switched to Slavery?


I would propose we build two settlers immediately following the completion of this workboat. One to settle St. Petersburg in our original spot, the other to hop across the bay to the copper spot.


I don't think there's any point building two settlers at this point as we have no worker to build the copper mine. We also can't connect the copper as we can't build roads even if we had a worker. I would finish our current builds, probably whipping the warrior on it's last turn and then build a settler for SP, warrior to let Moscow grow and then worker.

I do think Sailing should be next, perhaps followed by Writing>IW>Alphabet and then just trade for all the worker/religious techs we missed. We will want IW early to free up all those gems which means we'll need to whip out a couple workers when we get close to that point. I personally think that we've got a good shot at the Great Lighthouse too, although I'm not entirely sure where in our building we'll put it. Perhaps just chop it in St. Petersburg once we get workers.


Tech wise I think it's worth delaying sailing as we won't be settling the third city soon. There's probably a good chance that we'll find iron near Moscow/St. Petersburg. However rather than going for IW I think we should go for Agriculture and then Animal Husbandry to see if we have any horses nearby so that we can get something better than warriors to defend our cities. Another option is to go straight for AH and then go for the Wheel and Pottery. Pottery would be good for the granaries that we get half price. That then allows us to go for Writing for the libraries. After all we are supposed to be concentrating on science. :lol: If we don't have any horses within our fat crosses then perhaps we'll have to go for Archery.

well, I checked out the graph on the submissions and progress page...and they were producing culture from turn 1, which means they couldn't have moved anything other than their scout before settling in place

we are allowed to use those graphs for info on other teams, but nothing else except for the spoiler pages that open up(btw, I nominate either Simon or Sam to write ours this time) ;)

Ah. Understood - I hadn't noticed those graphs. Though I think there's something odd about the culture: It's showing us as generating culture from 4000BC, which we weren't.

Ta for the nomination. I'm not bothered either way who does spoiler pages. ;)

I've downloaded the save and had a look around (without playing any turns) (It's showing turn 33). Moscow's progressing nicely, :goodjob: Thrallia!

My initial impressions are that we may well need iron working soonish because there's jungle everywhere. There's very few places on the island where you can get a city to grow beyond size 2 or 3 before the jungle causes problems. And there's no fresh water other than the two rivers near the start location, so irrigating to the other side of the island isn't feasible.

The copper site is I guess important to settle at some point to guarantee the resource, I'm eyeing up the spot midway between the copper and the fish, because anywhere else round there is hopelessly food-challenged (ie. nothing > 1 food except coast. Or grassland after jungle chopped). That tile picks up the fish, copper, and two gems, plus another hill, although with the downer that it has no production until it's borders grow (you'd basically have to chop an obelisk before you do anything else). Or we can get something that will hook the copper and give us production immediately but with practically no food :( Gythaar has definitely given us a challenge here. Talk about caught between the devil and the deep blue sea...

Having looked at the island, I'm now much more favourable to getting sailing early on (though not necessarily next - I can certainly see Sam_Yeager's argument for getting AH next, especially with that cow nearby), really to see if we can put a city on another island before the land is taken. Perhaps a foothold on greco-chinese lands? The jungle all over our island is going to be quite a deterrent to any AI thinking of landing (even allowing for the AI being possibly slow to discover sailing), which gives us a bit more time to settle Muskovy Isle. And almost every spot on our island is going to be really production-challenged too - perhaps we'll have better luck on a neighbouring island?

We'll definitely need cities on other lands, of for no other reason than we've got vertiually no resources to trade down the road, just a ton of gems. Luckily, we are planning on winning by diplo, which means we won't need as much production as if we were planning for space race.

as for next techs, I agree AH makes much more sense, perhaps followed by Sailing. That may depend on what we see on other islands, which is why I think we should not bother with more than just the warrior that is half built for now...I think we should build workboats while allowing moscow to grow so that we can get them out there exploring.

If we go down the AH>Pottery>Writing road then we can get OB with greece and china and I would estimate we could meet between 8 and 12 civs easily using just 2 workboats exploring in opposite directions(since we are alone on our island and there's very little space for barbs I don't think they'll be a problem or that we'll need more than a couple early warriors) Obviously, we'll want Alphabet as soon as we meet a bunch of guys, though we should probably steer clear of trading anything with Toku or Izzy...they always seem to be hated by nearly everyone.

On the subject of tech trading...we'll want a fairly advanced tech like IW or HBR that we can trade to other civs cause I doubt we'll want to give up Alphabet immediately.

on the plus side for our island...we don't plan on needing a ton of production for awhile, early war seems to be out, and once we've got IW researched and St Petersburg and Moscow fully stocked on food stuffs, we should be able to fairly quickly subdue our island and produce quite a few good science cities, if nothing else.

Ah. Understood - I hadn't noticed those graphs. Though I think there's something odd about the culture: It's showing us as generating culture from 4000BC, which we weren't.

you're right...I didn't notice that, so it doesn't check each turn, it just averages out the final stats in the save over the course of the turnset...which means footballguys didn't move cause their culture hit the point ours is at 3 turns sooner and ream ms beyond moved once because theirs hit the same point as us two turns sooner and one turn after footballguys.

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes us to make up the 2-3 turn difference in scores for us moving so long.

I suggested earlier building the settler first. At the time I hadn't noticed that two forests the worker could chop are on hills so once mined there's no loss of ongoing production from chopping. I've now done some rough calculations and as a result I'm now erring more towards building worker first:

Settler=150 hammers, worker=90. At size 3, working 2 clams+forest we can build either of them at I think 9 hammers/turn (May be 8. I've noticed the game often gives a hammer less than you'd expect by calculating the surplus food/hammers). So 10 turns for worker, 17 for settler. If the worker chops the two hill-forests, that gives 60 hammers, reducing the settler cost to 90. So worker+settler = 20 turns. May be a turn or two longer as I think it's 5 turns to chop a forest + walking time; if so, worker can't chop them quite quickly enough. May be 12-13 turns for settler with some hammer overflow.

That looks to me like so nearly the same time for worker-chop-settler as settler-alone that it may be worth doing worker first.

We need to decide what to research next. From the discussion so far and looking at the map, I think there are three main contenders:

1. Animal Husbandry.
This is based on the strategy of finding out where horses are, possibly using the cows, and heading towards open borders from writing.

Advantages:

Gives us a reasonably quick path to writing.
We find out where horses are to help plan future cities. (NB. This may be good for production, but arguably isn't as important from a military POV now we know we do in principle have copper available).
We can use the cow to get a city with reasonable food/production, in particular to help pump out settlers.
If horses are available, gives us much stronger defence once we've hooked them up (except we need the wheel too).


Disadvantages:

If there's no horses on Muskovy Isle, we'll have partially wasted the research time.
Even if there are horses, unless they are in Moscow's radius, we won't really be able to use the knowledge straight away. We'll get horse-riding in 14-15 turns, but won't build our settler for another 20-25 turns, and we've already earmarked the floodplains city site for him (unless we change our mind about where to put that city).
It doesn't do anything to help future science.


2. Sailing
This is based on wanting to expand and find other civs.

Advantages:

If we decide to do so, we can use it to start colonizing the Greco-Chines continent
Gives us a quick route across to found a city by the copper (the alternative is about a 14-turn journey through the jungle)
Allows us to start exploring with a vessel that can defend itself (or to defend our fishing nets)


Disadvantages:

Doesn't do much for science (may help a bit to use coastal tiles, but only if we build lighthouses)
As with AH, we're getting the knowledge before we can use it. 14-15 turns, some time before our first settler is due.


3. Wheel (then pottery)
The science path.

Advantages:

Allows us to build cottages, which means further science starts coming more quickly.
The timing is almost perfect for St. Petersburg, if we stick to our plans for where to found it. We'll have pottery in around 20 turns, a few turns before the settler roles off the production line. We can therefore cottage that flood-plains tile straight away (if we have a worker)


Disadvantages:

We still have nothing but warriors for defence (but with cottages we can get archery more quickly)


Based on that reasoning, my vote goes for the wheel.

I'll hold off till later before I start my turnset to see what other people think, since the first thing I need to do is choose the research tech.

First thought is we should switch to Slavery when the workboat is finished, it'll enable us to whip things out and it's going to be awhile before we get a settler out right now.

I haven't done the math, but if you think worker>settler with chopping the forested hills is about the same then I'm all for that. As for science, I'd tend toward AH out of those three, but then I always seem to get pottery very late compared to other civs, and if we have a worker it is useful to have it since Petersburg will be able to work it and its ocean resources pretty quickly(it may actually be a better site once it hits size 3 to pump workers/settlers from)

Thus, I'll vote the Wheel, because we won't be able to really use AH yet anyway, and Pottery leads to Writing as well, and I think we need writing early for libraries and for OB.

@DynamicSpirit

I agree with going for Wheel first since even if we have horses within the fat cross we would need to connect them. BTW we don't need HBR to use the horses. Chariots would do just as well.

After Wheel I can see the point of Pottery next. However I think we should aim for AH next. As far as Sailing goes we will need Writing before we can get OBs so workboats may be only of limited use. With our virtually non existent military I'm not keen on agreeing OBs before we can beef up the military. Otherwise we will probably be hanging out a big sign saying 'Conquer us'.


(since we are alone on our island and there's very little space for barbs I don't think they'll be a problem or that we'll need more than a couple early warriors)

I disagree that there's little space for barbs. If we have space for five or more cities then there's plenty of room for barbs to spawn. Whilst they should not be as bad as our last game they will still spawn. Especially since we have so few units to fog bust. I think we also need to remember that our military units don't start with combat 1 this time. On that subject I think we should pull back our one and only warrior towards Moscow so that he can fog bust N of Moscow.

I agree that Wheel should be next to support StPete. (worker,chop settler) I still think Sailing,IW should be next. Reasoning: (from a possibly flawed noobie perspective:) ) 1. Other than Barbs I don't think we are in immediate danger of attack. 2. We can get the copper hooked up if needed before we can make use of horse so think we should wait on that tech route. 3. We have time to settle our island and can take any city that the AI attempts to settle on it with not much effort. 4. We are going to have to get off this island soon! before we go stir crazy:crazyeye: 5. Jungle, Jungle, Jungle= IW, IW, IW:D

I think we will want a foothold (Greco-Chin?) before we settle most of our island. It will take some time to get most of it cleared and productive. We need some hammers somewhere also. Don't shoot me if you think I'm nuts:crazyeye:

2. We can get the copper hooked up if needed before we can make use of horse so think we should wait on that tech route.


The trouble with the copper is that only the third (small) city will be able to make use of it as far as I am aware. If we have horses nearby i.e. in our fat cross then we can have Moscow and SP building chariots.


4. We are going to have to get off this island soon! before we go stir crazy:crazyeye: 5. Jungle, Jungle, Jungle= IW, IW, IW:D

I think we will want a foothold (Greco-Chin?) before we settle most of our island. It will take some time to get most of it cleared and productive. We need some hammers somewhere also. Don't shoot me if you think I'm nuts:crazyeye:

How do we make our island productive if we lack the majority of worker techs? The same applies to cities on other islands.

The trouble with the copper is that only the third (small) city will be able to make use of it as far as I am aware. If we have horses nearby i.e. in our fat cross then we can have Moscow and SP building chariots.


Once we have sailing, the access to copper will run across the water. However since St. Petersburg is rather hammer-challenged, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up wanting to build most of our military units in the copper city anyway, and ferrying them to where they are needed, while St. Petersburg builds the libraries and markets etc. that it will require to make max. use of its commerce.


How do we make our island productive if we lack the majority of worker techs? The same applies to cities on other islands.


I think the issue is that even knowing all the worker techs, there's very little you can do to make most of our island productive in terms of hammers. That may not be the case for other islands (on the greco-chinese one I see plains and a river in Thrallia's screenshot - so it's looking hopeful).

Question? Trying to do some numbers to see what happens with our research and growth over next 20+ turns. The save shows sailing needing 223 Beakers and 16 turns. The beaker per turn on the City view shows 11. That says to me 21 turns. What am I missing? Until this confused me I was convinced we should switch to a sea tile (2 commerce) after workboat to take a turn off of Sailing if that was our next tech. Not in a hurry to build a warrior and don't know whether growth is preferable to tech at this point. Any discussion would be appreciated.:confused:

The main reason I'm desiring sailign early isn't for the galleys, it is so that our copper city would be connected to Petersburg and Moscow, and so that we can build a lighthouse in Moscow and Petersburg...even if we don't research Masonry for awhile(required for GL), a lighthouse is a worthwhile investment for the bonus food because it would enable us to grow the cities faster and/or pump out workers/settlers faster.

I do think we should take a long term look at going for the Lighthouse too, it would be very beneficial on this map for the rest of our game and we should be able to build it as late as 500BC as long as we are prepared for it.

Ok DynamicSpirit, now I am with you on Wheel. If we are going to have a worker around, he/she can do some roading when nothing is available.

I still think Sailing is extreamly important for the reason of establishing cities in more productive lands. We do not need OB to go get oceanfront cities and possibly steal workers from far away lands.:devil:

From what I noticed, we only have 4 city sites that will be functional without IW. However we should insert a needed and cheap landscape tech in between each of these to die for techs.

BTW how do you get rid of the "possible city site" label from the save?

As for horses being within the fat cross.:lol: :lol: :lol: Unless Gythaar was feeling ill when he did the map.....:lol:

Actually I hope I am wrong.

Ok, if I understand the discussion correctly the consensus is to change Sailing to Wheel. After that I'm unsure if the path is Sailing->Pottery or Pottery->Sailing. I think it's the former.

Buildwise the aim is Workboat->Worker->Settler? If so I recommend that we switch from the stone (1F2H) to the 2F1G tile to the NE on the 4th turn. It delays the workboat by 1 turn but allows us to grow Moscow to 3. We can then switch to Slavery and then start the worker.

Oh btw can we please bring our only military unit back towards Moscow please. Running light on military is one thing. Having no military within 5 tiles of our capital is just asking for trouble.

Well, it has started. Looks good. :goodjob:

Unfortunately I cannot have a look at the game as I am renovating my flat this weekend.:cry:

Sailing would be nice to connect the copper city immediately and enabling us to build a lighthouse for faster growth, but without looking at the save this is just a feeling.

Roster:

Thrallia - got us started
Simon - UP !
Sam - on deck
Mark
Dagnabit
Htadus

OK. I've played up to turn 50 to give a round number (though slightly boobed by moving the units on turn 50 so turn 51 is the first one Sam will play. Sorry!)

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1623/sgotm03greece01fh6.th.jpg (http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgotm03greece01fh6.jpg)

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7112/sgotm03muskovynorth01wv9.th.jpg (http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgotm03muskovynorth01wv9.jpg)

Current Situation.
We can forget about a foothold on Greco-Roman lands - Greeks already there :mad: . Maybe the Great Unknown continent will be a better bet for early expansion? The Greeks must've gone for AH as their first tech as they had a cow already hooked up when our workboat passed by. (Note: Greeks start knowing fishing. Thanks, Gyathaar!).

In terms of fogbusting, I'm trying to move the units so we have the entire area near Moscow, plus the copper, fogbusted. A couple more units and we should have practically the entire island fogbusted, which makes defence easier. Note however, the single tile of St. Petersburg is in the FOW. We need to deal with that before we can take a settler there. We should be OK for city defence at the moment as barbs can't enter cultural borders for a while longer.

The Worker is about to be built. I suggest slipping in building another warrior before building the settler (I think if we immediately tell the worker to mine the first hill rather than clear forest, it'll take him longer to do that than the time to build the warrior so the hammers will still go to the settler)

I added my recommendation for the copper city and reworded some of the signs so as the game goes we can see who's recommending what ;-)

Events

Turn 33. Start moving scout back. My reasoning: Swap scout with a warrior, so we keep permanent watch on the copper site (it'll be hugely embarrassing to have a barb city appear there). But since whoever is keeping watch there has nowhere to run to if attacked, it needs to be a warrior that has some defence against non-animal barbs. The scout is better off fogbusting near a city where he does have somewhere to run to).
Turn 33. Start researching Wheel
Turn 35. Scout attacked by panther. Down to 0.5 health.
Turn 36. Workboat built. There's 4 turns till Moscow hits size 3, I use those turns to take the workboat out to look bit more at the Greco-Chinese lands while building a warrior in Moscow.
Turn 40. Moscow hits size 3. Since there's only two turns till the warrior is built, I decide to let it finish before swapping to worker.
Turn 44. Wheel discovered. I go for pottery next (12 turns)
Turn 48. We are now at the point where we can poprush the worker. (First turn where it's only cost 1 pop to build). I decide not to becaus worker is only 3 turns away anyway and it'll cost 1 turn to revolt, and leave us size 2.


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm3/Geezers_SG003_BC2500_01.Civ4SavedGame

@Dagnabit: I don't think time to research is calculated solely as research cost/beakers. There's some bonus factor that comes into it that eg. makes it cheaper to research techs that lots of civs you are in contact with already know, or where you know all the prerequisites for it. I've never found this info in the game itself but it's been discussed in the forums.

@Thrallia: Lighthouse=90 hammers. Assuming size 4 city still working the clam we will get 6 hammers/turn so 15 turns to build. It'll add two 'hammers'/turn to settler production, saving I think 1 turn on a worker and 1-2 turns on a settler.

@Htadus: Changing/removing signs is in the global view. The leftmost of the menu options in the bottom right of the screen (forgot what it's called) lets you add/delete labels.

@Thrallia: I agree connecting the copper city with the other cities is a good reason for having sailing (besides that it'll be almost quicker to build a galley and ferry the settler across than to walk him there!). ISTM that's not very urgent at the moment as it's going to be at least 30-40 turns before we have the copper city running and the copper hooked up anyway.

@Htadus: Changing/removing signs is in the global view. The leftmost of the menu options in the bottom right of the screen (forgot what it's called) lets you add/delete labels.


Alt-S also brings up box for labels. Click on square; type comment; Alt-S to turn off

Turn 33. Start moving scout back. My reasoning: Swap scout with a warrior, so we keep permanent watch on the copper site (it'll be hugely embarrassing to have a barb city appear there). But since whoever is keeping watch there has nowhere to run to if attacked, it needs to be a warrior that has some defence against non-animal barbs. The scout is better off fogbusting near a city where he does have somewhere to run to).

I can understand the reasoning but why move the scout before the warrior gets there? :confused: Let's just hope there isn't a barb city by the time the warrior gets there. ;)

EDIT:

The Worker is about to be built. I suggest slipping in building another warrior before building the settler

Sounds good to me.

I've had an initial look at the game and these are my thoughts for my turn.


There's rarely a good time to switch civics, particularly when it costs turns, but I propose to switch to Slavery on my pre-turn and get it out of the way.
Techs: Complete Pottery. Start Sailing. After that I propose Writing so that we can get some libraries.
Builds: Warrior->Settler->Galley/Workboat.
Worker actions: Chop the two hills by Moscow. Connect SP to Moscow.


I think we would need at least two or three more warriors to fogbust the entire island which I don't think is justified. Besides which, barbs are good for XP. :)

I think the above plan should take up my turn. However please tell me if I've overlooked something. Especially on tech proposals.

Warning!
AlanH has issued a very strong warning against gaining pre-knowledge in the maintenance thread. I'm pretty sure none of us are guilty of this but I'm mentioning it to remind everyone.

EDIT: Ideas for S.Petes builds? Provisionally I think Granary for whipping efficiency.

I've had an initial look at the game and these are my thoughts for my turn.

There's rarely a good time to switch civics, particularly when it costs turns, but I propose to switch to Slavery on my pre-turn and get it out of the way.
Techs: Complete Pottery. Start Sailing. After that I propose Writing so that we can get some libraries.
Builds: Warrior->Settler->Galley/Workboat.
Worker actions: Chop the two hills by Moscow. Connect SP to Moscow.I think we would need at least two or three more warriors to fogbust the entire island which I don't think is justified. Besides which, barbs are good for XP. :)
I think the above plan should take up my turn. However please tell me if I've overlooked something. Especially on tech proposals.


I think it is a good plan. The worker is going to be busy for awhile. After chopping the two hills should he cottage StPete floodplain before mining?

I Like Dynamic Spirits Location for Coppertownski because it picks up the fish. It does however leave copper outside cultural boarder necessitating library(writing) or obolisk(meditation)-about 15turns plus mining time. (Assuming we transport worker by galley)Can we delay that long to get metal or Settle Thrallia's original spot?

I think it is a good plan. The worker is going to be busy for awhile. After chopping the two hills should he cottage StPete floodplain before mining?

Well by the time the worker's done the chopping and roading it'll be somebody else's turn.


I Like Dynamic Spirits Location for Coppertownski because it picks up the fish. It does however leave copper outside cultural boarder necessitating library(writing) or obolisk(meditation)-about 15turns plus mining time. (Assuming we transport worker by galley)Can we delay that long to get metal or Settle Thrallia's original spot?

I actually prefer a third location. :lol: I'll put up yet another sign. :lol:

my only input at this time is that I would recommend waiting to revolt to slavery until the turn the worker finishes, so that it doesn't get delayed by the revolution and can go ahead and start moving to chop stuff.

I'd also agree with the tech order, finish Pottery>Sailing>Writing

I can understand the reasoning but why move the scout before the warrior gets there? :confused: Let's just hope there isn't a barb city by the time the warrior gets there. ;)


Sorry, that was slightly muddled thinking on my part :confused: . I think I was thinking, don't want to leave no units at all near Moscow - but of course it doesn't matter yet coz barbs can't enter cultural borders yet. I don't think they can found cities yet either, I'm not sure what date they can do that. But it would be wise to get the warrior to the copper.

An observation about St Pete. Growth is going to be severely limited without additional +:) . (Size 3 or 4? maybe) I am not so sure we want to wait for gems if settling DynamicSpirit's Coppertownski ( which I still like). Thrallia's spot gets them a little quicker but is food challenged in the early going. What if : we settle on the Copper. Then a town 2 west of fish picks up the additional gems when we fill in island. We get metal right away and gems can be mined directly which help Moscow and St Pete grow larger sooner.