Welcome to your C_IV Warlords SGOTM 4 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
This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special, fractal map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals including India. All victory conditions are enabled except Diplomatic, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the fastest Space defeat by Gandhi.

Versions
This game will be played in Warlords Version 2.08 only.

It will be played using the current version of the HoF Mod. This is version 2.08.003 for Windows. There are insufficient Mac players to form a Mac team. so it will be played in Windows only.

If later versions of Warlords or the HoF Mod are released they cannot be used for this 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 February 23.

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

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm4_start_small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm4_start_large.jpg)

Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Ragnar of The Vikings
Rivals - 7 civs including Gandhi (who is locked in war with Ragnar)
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, cylindrical, medium sea level, temperate
Game Speed - Epic
Diplomatic Victory Disabled
All other settings are defaults

Notes

Please visit the C-IV Warlords SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=208462) to check out the rules and procedures to ensure that you are adequately prepared for this game.

Warlords v.2.08 is supported for this SGOTM. No other versions can be used, and you will have to stick with the same version throughout the game.

Teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.

Awards will be given to teams who achieve Space defeats to India 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.

Please enjoy the game :)

Hi everyone! Looking forward to this one. I dug around bit on the SGOTM9 civ 3 boards but not sure there is a lot of useful information there.

The great library seemed to be a pretty key part of the strategy in that game (as it was in civ 3 generally). I wonder if it's civ 4 equivalent (internet) won't also be helpful here. If we let Gandhi capture it then we can transfer tech to him as long as one other civ also knows it.

Also do we have a team leader? I nominate TDK (assuming he is up for it) since he orchestrated this whole merger.

Unfortunatly the Internet is not located in a specific city, so we won`t be able to let Gandi capture it. It will be difficult to know how best to help Gandi without knowing what his situation is, so early exploration will be a prioirity.

I've never played a game like this so I'll be feeling my way. Using great engineers to build wonders for Ghandi may be a worthwhile tactic although that isn't applicable for the Internet. The U.N. might be a priority so Ghandi doesn't nuke us repeatedly.

Maybe some team can win the wooden spoons and a laurel at the same time. Lose everything but a one tile island city at the end.

Unfortunatly the Internet is not located in a specific city, so we won`t be able to let Gandi capture it. It will be difficult to know how best to help Gandi without knowing what his situation is, so early exploration will be a prioirity.

Shoot. I didn't know that. I never tech that far in my games!

Hello, Just checking in...

This looks like a fun game. I have never tried something like this before.

Checking in.

Strange game. It says we are a neighbour of Gandhi, do you think it is feasable to evacuate the mainland? Will this make Gandhi use fewer ressources on the war?

TDK

I created a test game in world builder for those who are interested.

Strange game. It says we are a neighbour of Gandhi, do you think it is feasable to evacuate the mainland? Will this make Gandhi use fewer ressources on the war?


Where does it say we are a neighbour of Gandi? If he is on the same continent conquering a second core and then allowing Gandi to take our first could speed things up (this was done a lot in the Civ 3 version), though working out the best timing could be tricky. I don`t think we can determine a viable longterm strategy befoe we know where Gandi is.

I suggest settling in place as it is a good location for the capital and we are unlikely to find something better nearby. Normally in this situation I would go workboat - warrior - worker and research mining and bronze working, but if Gandi is nearby we may want to build a few warriors first.

Hi guys

I would agree with settling in place, as there is not even an obvious direction to move in. Any suggestion as to why the southern blue circle is there? Do we want to have someone move the scout S then W onto that hill, or NW, SW or NW, NW? And then post a screenshot?

From the maitenance thread:
You start the game as a neighbour of India. Following the pact you are at permanent war with Gandhi, and will remain so for the rest of the game.
It does say neibhour. I agree we should probably settle in place.

TDK

Settling place is the right thing to do - not sure how we could get a better spot by exploring. I guess the question is what is our build order and tech path? How about WB->worker->warrior/scout and Ag->AH->mining->BW?

Hello,
I just played MS's practice game. Thanks.

I like settling in place. It is a good enough spot, so why waste turns looking for better. I played the following:

Archery->Mining->Bronze Working
Work Boat->Archer->Worker

Both the production & research queue completed within one turn of 3000BC. Building the workboat first brings food and gold, better than any land tile. Archery is researched well before the work boat is built.

I normally do not research archery. Since the work boat comes before the worker, there is no reason to quickly research animal husbandry-agriculture-wheel or mining.

I normally do not research archery. Since the work boat comes before the worker, there is no reason to quickly research animal husbandry-agriculture-wheel or mining.
Feb 25, 2007 05:40 PM

The point of researching mining first is that it opens up bronze working allowing whipping/chopping. It also allows us to find a source of copper for our next city. Why would we need archery early? Unless we lack all military resources it is useless to us.

With the large food surplus, I would favor Ag -> AH -> Mining -> BW. I think we can build the first worker quickly with the surplus from the clams and a settler from the three food sources without chopping. Then the second city grabs either horses or wait for the finish of BW for copper. BW is definitely a priority for chopping and whipping production in the capital so I wouldn't argue with Mining -> BW -> Ag -> AH and chopping a settler.

We are still running SGOTM03 so I haven't really thought about warrior production with this tech order and delayed slavery. We will have to fit a couple of warriors into the queue especially if we meet Ghandi. I doubt the AI would try an archer rush even if they are neighbours. I think we can wait for chariots or axes rather than building archers.

I don't think we can decide much other than the initial tech order without seeing more of the map. Ghandi may be 10 tiles away but unreachable until Optics like SGOTM01 or right on top of us.

The point of researching mining first is that it opens up bronze working allowing whipping/chopping. It also allows us to find a source of copper for our next city.


I agree that it opens up whipping and chopping, but to what purpose? Supposing we go with the build order of WB->defender->worker, then:

1) The worker will not be available to chop until 3000BC, so having BW before then does us no good.

2) Whipping will be delayed because population cannot grow significantly until the WB is in place and stops during the worker build. If you need early whipping then I would go worker->defender->workboat and AH->Mining->BW

For the record, I like the WB->defender->worker production queue. The clams provides 4F 3G. That one tile will jump start our early research and help pop growth.

Why would we need archery early? Unless we lack all military resources it is useless to us.

Until we can locate copper/iron, settle near it, and mine/road it, we will lack any military resources. Early archery gives us a hedge against Ghandi from the start. It also gives us options to steal a worker and survive a counter attack (assuming the opportunity exists).

We cannot use the worker techs until a worker is available. By the time one is built, we can rapidly research the low-level techs as need arises.

I don't think a worker steal is worth the trouble. We have so much surplus food in the capital that worker and settler production will be quick and we don't want to choke Ghandi's growth early.

I played the test game to 0AD and only fought a single battle with Ghandi. I didn't have any military resources hooked up until 100BC and very low power but he wouldn't take the offensive.

Guys, I'm off to skiing for the next 10 days so I will just give my input on starting the game and be on my way.
I would move the scout 2NW, moving south won't reveal any usefull information as we won't settle in the south anyway. Settling in place seems like the best option, 2N or 1N-1NW are also possibilities.
I like both worker-workboat and workboat-worker, the first more than the second. Our scout should be able to asses if Gandhi is close at an early date and that should decide how many warrior slots we stick in there.

More longterm, we should decide at an early date if we want to do the Machinery slingshot followed by the prophet grabbing Civil Service. This would potentially give us Beserkers at around 300BC but is this really usefull to us?

TDK

This is a strange game. We will have to tech as fast as possible and trade those techs with Gandhi's friends. We'll also have to let Gandhi take over good production and commerce cities with lots of towns so he will have some techs to trade with the other AI. At least I think - not really sure!

I'm not sure we will have to fight many wars until we are trying to stop someone else from building the Apollo program & space ship parts - we may be able to do that with spies, too. Although maybe it is a good idea to keep Gandhi's friends weak so they are incapible of building the space ship while we gift them lots of tech.

Anyway I think better to tech as if we were going for a space ship victory ourselves?

Yes, I agree with teching for a space ship ourselves, or at least somewhere close. We will not need to build our own spaceship, but we might need to fight a late modern era war against anyone else who is building one.

Too early to tell if beserkers wil be useful or not very early. Civil service would also be handy for bureaucracy, but the starting site is not hugely impressive yet.

I like going for BW early because it at least reveals where copper is, but that argument can equally be applied to AH.

We are probably going to have to let Gandi conquer our initial cities, and the sooner he does it the better, if we are to survive this and still be in a position to help Gandi we are going to have to conquer a second core, prefrebaly on another island as soon as possibe. Early beserkers would therefore be extremly useful, unforunatly a machinery slingshot seems extremly risky unless we can find a gold mine for our second city, maybe it would be better to try for a metalcasting slingshot? Our capital will be a production monster so stonehenge would be a possibility as well.

I have been playing a few test games and it seems as if agriculture-animal husbandry-mining-bronzeworking is the better tech order. If we go workboat-warrior-warrior(while growing to sixe 4)-settler we should still be able to see bronze before we found our second city.

That sounds like a good plan mdy.

Do you want to start the game and do some initial scouting?

I have been playing a few test games and it seems as if agriculture-animal husbandry-mining-bronzeworking is the better tech order. If we go workboat-warrior-warrior(while growing to sixe 4)-settler we should still be able to see bronze before we found our second city.


OK by me, go for it!

O.K. I will play tomorrow if no one else has any last minuite ideas. How long should the initial turnsets be? I suggest 20 turns for the first few, and then cutting them to 10 later.

20 and 10 or maybe even 20 and 15. Its going to take Ghandi a long time to get to space.

Also do we have a team leader?


It looks like there are no volunteers, so we can all be leaders (or be leaderless).

If the playing order hasn't been created by the weekend, I will put one together and post it for comment.

We are probably going to have to let Gandi conquer our initial cities, and the sooner he does it the better, if we are to survive this and still be in a position to help Gandi we are going to have to conquer a second core, prefrebaly on another island as soon as possibe. Early beserkers would therefore be extremly useful, unforunatly a machinery slingshot seems extremly risky unless we can find a gold mine for our second city, maybe it would be better to try for a metalcasting slingshot? Our capital will be a production monster so stonehenge would be a possibility as well.

I have been playing a few test games and it seems as if agriculture-animal husbandry-mining-bronzeworking is the better tech order. If we go workboat-warrior-warrior(while growing to sixe 4)-settler we should still be able to see bronze before we found our second city.

I wonder if we should just abandon our continent ASAP.The AI is pretty good at expanding to fill all available space so maybe not sure that we need to develop too many cities for him. (unless there is jungle - I think the AI does not chop jungle well).

I think it will be important to preserve our ability to tech quickly. I think our tech pace will determine how fast Gandhi will get into space by keeping the overall tech level for the game very high.

Turn 0, 4000 BC: Nidaros has been founded.

Turn 7, 3790 BC: The borders of Nidaros have expanded!

Turn 9, 3730 BC: Barbarian's Wolf (1.00) vs One Short Straw's Scout (2.95)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: Combat Odds: 0.0%
Turn 9, 3730 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: (Class Animal Combat: +100%)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 33 (67/100HP)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 33 (34/100HP)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 33 (1/100HP)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 33 (0/100HP)
Turn 9, 3730 BC: One Short Straw's Scout has defeated Barbarian's Wolf!

Turn 11, 3670 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs One Short Straw's Scout (2.45)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: Combat Odds: 26.2%
Turn 11, 3670 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: (Class Animal Combat: +100%)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: One Short Straw's Scout is hit for 18 (82/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: One Short Straw's Scout is hit for 18 (64/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: One Short Straw's Scout is hit for 18 (46/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 22 (78/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: One Short Straw's Scout is hit for 18 (28/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: One Short Straw's Scout is hit for 18 (10/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 22 (56/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 22 (34/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 22 (12/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: One Short Straw's Scout is hit for 18 (0/100HP)
Turn 11, 3670 BC: Barbarian's Lion has defeated One Short Straw's Scout!

Turn 12, 3640 BC: You have discovered Agriculture!
Turn 12, 3640 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Unfortunatly the scout was killed before I could do much exploring, and we still have not met any civs. We have however found a potentially excellent early game city site (see screenshot).

These gold mines could provide a massive early research boost and open up the possibility of a machinery slingshot via the Oracle.

If the playing order hasn't been created by the weekend, I will put one together and post it for comment.

How about we rotate between Team One & Short Straw players like this:

mdy - Just Played
RobertTheBruce - Up
mboza - On Deck
mushroomshirt
TDK
llib_rm

Okay, I have the save.

AH->Mining->BW
Finish warrior and grow to size three then worker -> settler.
I'll send the first warrior north to scout the river past the hills and then fog bust near the gold.

Any other thoughts, I'll try to play on Sunday.

I think the gold mines should be our next city although I'm not sure of the location probably have to share the pigs with the capital. The corn is better long term but needs Civil Service.

With gold and gems make this a very nice start with another really nice post-IW city site just south of the capital.

AH->Mining->BW
Finish warrior and grow to size three then worker -> settler.

We may want to fit mystisim/polytheism in after animal husbandry. This would allow our second city to begin building an obelisk immediatly, and polytheism would give us a good chance of founding hinduism. Using this strategy in a test game I was able to acheive a civil service slingshot via the Oracle in 790BC. If we did this we could have beserkers by 100BC. This would make it much easier to conquer another core.

[edit]If we generated a GS to bulb mathematics we could potentially spped this up by 10 turns giving us CS in 900-1000BC and beserkes around 200-300BC. I managed 955BC in one test game. Better micromanaging could probavly save a few more turns off.

For this to work the second city really needs to be positioned so it can work both the pigs, fish and all three gold mines.

[edit] It would actually be quicker to fo AH-mining-writing-bronze working, and build a libary in our second city. We would still be able to see copper before founding our second city.
790BC seems rather late to be building the Oracle, does anyone know when the AI is likly to build it in Warlords

We may want to fit mystisim/polytheism in after animal husbandry. This would allow our second city to begin building an obelisk immediatly, and polytheism would give us a good chance of founding hinduism. Using this strategy in a test game I was able to acheive a civil service slingshot via the Oracle in 790BC. If we did this we could have beserkers by 100BC. This would make it much easier to conquer another core.


Was this with 2.08? Mathematics is now a pre-req for civil service IIRC.

Okay, I have the save.

AH->Mining->BW
Finish warrior and grow to size three then worker -> settler.

I think the gold mines should be our next city although I'm not sure of the location probably have to share the pigs with the capital. The corn is better long term but needs Civil Service.




Looks good. Sharing the pigs is a good idea. The capital is food rich with clams and corn already. Go for it!

Was this with 2.08? Mathematics is now a pre-req for civil service IIRC.
Yes this was with 2.08. Mathematics can be lightbulbed with a GS. Normally even with this the CS slingshot can`t be done, but working the 2 gold mines make it possible. The cost of this is that it delays our third city a bit, but it would give us a powerful tech advantage.

Sharing the pigs is a good idea. The capital is food rich with clams and corn already.

Can the two cities share the pigs? Do the pigs not just go to one and are grayed out in the other? Or can we manipulate which city they are grayed out in?

If the corn is better long term, we are beelining to CS, or do we need the fish to run enough mines to beeline to CS?

[edit]
All this time, and I have never realised that you can click on the greyed out squares to change them from one city to another, doh

Can the two cities share the pigs? Do the pigs not just go to one and are grayed out in the other? Or can we manipulate which city they are grayed out in?

If the corn is better long term, we are beelining to CS, or do we need the fish to run enough mines to beeline to CS?
Mar 04, 2007 09:21 AM

We can choose which city works the pigs. To pull off a CS slingshot we only need to work 2 gold mines so the fish isn`t nessesary. The corn site may look better long tern but the corn is surrounded by jungle so this is not likly to be a usable tile in the short term. Improving the corn would also take up valuable worker turns which would slow us down. It also has the disadvantage that it would need a border pop to work the corn and 2 gold mines.

The limiting factor in my test games was the time needed to generate a GS. Interstingly this did not depend on whether we got writing or bronze working first, so I guess we may as well stick with the original tech order of mining-bronze working.

Latest set of turns,
We lost a warrior to a bear and we have horses by the capital. I played this morning before seeing the BW vs Writing message so I started Writing for the library in the capital.

We still haven't met any other civs so it looks like an isolated start. We probably need to spam a few warriors for fogbusting although this will delay the settler and library.

Turn 22, 3340 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (3.10)
Turn 22, 3340 BC: Combat Odds: 9.1%
Turn 22, 3340 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 22, 3340 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 22, 3340 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 22, 3340 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 25, 3250 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!

Turn 29, 3130 BC: Barbarian's Bear (3.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (3.60)
Turn 29, 3130 BC: Combat Odds: 27.2%
Turn 29, 3130 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 29, 3130 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 29, 3130 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 29, 3130 BC: Barbarian's Bear has defeated One Short Straw's Warrior!

Turn 33, 3010 BC: You have discovered Mining!

Turn 35, 2950 BC: Barbarian's Bear (1.98) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (3.10)
Turn 35, 2950 BC: Combat Odds: 4.4%
Turn 35, 2950 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 35, 2950 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 35, 2950 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 35, 2950 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 17 (83/100HP)
Turn 35, 2950 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Bear!

Ok, got the save.

12 turns to writing, 18 to bronze working. Is it worth switching or do we just stick to finishing writing?

Nidaros is 4/39 (+2pt) to a 4th pop, and 11/22(+6pt) to a warrior. Finish the warrior then start a settler, or spam warriors for a while longer? The terrain is not much help for fog busting, we probably need 6 or so warriors, one in Nidaros, one on the jungle hill to the south (south of the mountain), one where the warrior currently is, one near the gold (jungle hill by river will cover it), and two to the north, plus any explorers. How long do we have until the barbs start appearing, and how many warriors do we want by then? With this isolated start, and a big

The worker is 5 turns from completing a pasture on the horses. Next task is presumably the pigs then the corn. The settler is 16 turns away if we start now (8hpt*5 + 10hpt*11), 15 if we start after the pasture completes (10hpt), not including the effect of pasturing the pigs. So if I do 15 turns it will still not complete.

If we switch to BW, it does not significantly improve the settler time, unless we are spaming warriors. If we do switch, spam some warriors and whip the settler as soon as BW completes, we need to wait ~9 turns for writing before we can start the library (12 + 1 to revolt, - 1 to whip and 3 turns to travel and settle). If we stick with writing, the settler will be delayed slightly because we cannot chop or whip it, but we can start the library as soon as we settle the second city.

By my reckoning, if we want fewer than 4 warriors, and start the new city on the library, we should stick with writing, otherwise we should switch now and spam warriors, and whip the settler for just before the completion of writing.

So how many warriors?

At this point I think we need to decide weather we are going to attempt a CS slingshot via Oracle or not.

If we are we need to get a libary and two scientists in the capital as soon as possible as this was the limiting factor in my tests. A CS slingshot does not actually need a library in the gold city so I would switch to producing a settler in the capital after the warrior is completed. Our second city can then pump out warriors for fogbusting. After the settler is built the capital will need to build either worker-library or library-worker. At the moment I don`t know the optimal order, if you are interested I might thiss this later today.

As we have started researching writing we should finish it-it does not matter which we discover first as long as we don`t switch between the two half way through.

I'm willing to keep giving the CS slingshot a try. There are a lot of forested/jungle hills so warriors should be okay until the barbarian axes appear. We just need to hook up the horses before that happens. Did you include whips/chops to finish the library in your calculated date?

I'm willing to keep giving the CS slingshot a try. There are a lot of forested/jungle hills so warriors should be okay until the barbarian axes appear. We just need to hook up the horses before that happens. Did you include whips/chops to finish the library in your calculated date?

The presence of the horse can actually speed things up a little.

I used the following tech order: writing-bronze working (revolt to slavery)-mysticism-meditation-priesthood-code of laws.

The capitals build order was: finish warrior-settler-library(whipped as soon as bronze working was discovered)-warrior-warrior-Oracle(3 chops and whipped for three pop).

The second city can build warrior/workboat for exploration/library depending on what seems most useful at the time until it reaches size three at which point it can build a settler for our third city if we want one that soon.

It was actully one turn quicker for the worker to farm the corn before the pigs.

Using this strategy I was able to get a CS slingshot in 1000BC. In the 8 test games I have done the earlist the AI has built the Oracle is 985BC.

Sounds like a well thought out plan to me. I'm on-board with the CS slingshot idea.

Ok, I will stick with writing and start a settler when the warrior finishes. Will play this evening.

Ok, starting now

turn 1 2770 BC: fight off lion, promote as woodsman
turn 2 start settler
turn 3 fight off panther
turn 4 Genghis Khan turns up to the south of where the warrior started (warrior is still healing, yet to move), finish pasture

turn 6 2620 Fight off bear, start pasture
turn 10 2500 BC, we are 5th most cultured, Gandhi 4th, Genghis 5th, finish pasture
turn 12 2440 finish writing, start bronze working
turn 14 2380 Gandhi adopts slavery, we discover Dehli, 13 squares due west of Nidaros, looks like a seperate island at the moment
turn 16 2320 finish settler, start library (27 turns)
turn 18 2260 Found Uppsala, start warrior for fog busting, start working pig, enter hut (in pic) to get a look at second indian city. Enter the classical era! We have discovered Mathematics. Oh, and Bombay holds an archer, a warrior, and a worker.
turn 19 2230 first barb warrior appears
turn 20 2200 BC Barb disappears to SW of Uppsala (marked on pic as black arrow), Hinduism founded in a distant land


Turn 40, 2800 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (4.10)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: Combat Odds: 0.8%
Turn 40, 2800 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (72/100HP)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (44/100HP)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 14 (86/100HP)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (16/100HP)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 14 (72/100HP)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 14 (58/100HP)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 28 (0/100HP)
Turn 40, 2800 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 42, 2740 BC: Barbarian's Panther (2.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (4.09)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: Combat Odds: 1.8%
Turn 42, 2740 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: (Fortify: +5%)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: (Feature: +20%)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 29 (71/100HP)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 29 (42/100HP)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 13 (76/100HP)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 29 (13/100HP)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 13 (63/100HP)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 13 (50/100HP)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: Barbarian's Panther is hit for 29 (0/100HP)
Turn 42, 2740 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Panther!

Turn 45, 2650 BC: Barbarian's Bear (3.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (4.10)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: Combat Odds: 20.7%
Turn 45, 2650 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 17 (83/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: Barbarian's Bear is hit for 23 (77/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: Barbarian's Bear is hit for 23 (54/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 17 (66/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: Barbarian's Bear is hit for 23 (31/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: Barbarian's Bear is hit for 23 (8/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 17 (49/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: Barbarian's Bear is hit for 23 (0/100HP)
Turn 45, 2650 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Bear!

Turn 51, 2470 BC: You have discovered Writing!

Turn 53, 2410 BC: Gandhi adopts Slavery!

Turn 58, 2260 BC: Uppsala has been founded.
Turn 58, 2260 BC: The villagers have given you the secrets of a new Technology!
Turn 58, 2260 BC: You have discovered Mathematics!

Turn 59, 2230 BC: Hinduism has been founded in a distant land!

As we have maths, the library is perhaps no longer critical, and we could build 2 warriors or so before resuming the library.

The GS I think will give us the first of the wheel, alphabet, iron working then metal casting instead of maths.

Wow, Math from a hut! I guess I've never researched writing before bronze working so I've never gotten math.

I agree with producing a couple of warriors to fog bust. I would suggest getting the GS for the Bureaucracy and Academy combo in the capital. We can cottage around the capital and if we move then its a boost to Ghandi's research.

I guess I am up but would anyone mind if I take a skip? We (short straw) are still finishing up our SGOTM3 and I just played a difficult bunch of turns. I need to get my head back in this one. I know TDK is out still for another few days, llib_rm - if you're up for it do you want to squeeze a set in here before your SGOTM3 set comes up?

If no one is ready I promise to be able to play by Sunday at the latest.

As we have maths, the library is perhaps no longer critical, and we could build 2 warriors or so before resuming the library.

The GS I think will give us the first of the wheel, alphabet, iron working then metal casting instead of maths.
I would still build the library, with 2 GS hired in contributes an extra 10-11 beakers of research- It is actually more important to our tech rate than a gold mine. If we revolt to slavery and whip it as soon as bronze working is researched we will have time to build 2 more warriors in the capital before we need to start on the Oracle. We can also get a few more warriors out of our second city.

The GS I think will give us the first of the wheel, alphabet, iron working then metal casting instead of maths

I agree with producing a couple of warriors to fog bust. I would suggest getting the GS for the Bureaucracy and Academy combo in the capital. We can cottage around the capital and if we move then its a boost to Ghandi's research.

How likley is an academy to survive when Gandi takes the city? If it`s likly to be destroyed fairly soon it would not be too valuable for us, the same is true for superspecialists. This would make lightbulbing the best use of the GS.

I think a GS gives education/printing press/wheel/philosophy/optics/paper/astronomy

Lightbulbing the wheel would be a waste, so what techs we get depend on the tech path we choose.

If we go bronze working-mysticism-meditation-priesthood we will get philosophy, it is also the quickest way to the Oracle

If we go bronze working-mysticism-polytheism-priesthood we will be able to get paper, or later an Optics/astronomy slingshot, this might be more useful to us but it would delay the CS slingshot.

Which path should we choose?

I would probably go via polytheism to keep optics/astronomy open for the GS, even though it delays the CS sling to 985BC.

I think Academies are guaranteed to survive like wonders. I know I have captured them before even though they produce culture. Lightbulbing toward Liberalism is a good choice so Philosophy would be fine with me.

CS opens Paper which opens Education and Printing Press so its hard to lightbulb the Astronomy path with scientists after CS. [We learned this the hard way in SGOTM02.]

I have captured many cities with academies in them, not sure if they always survive, but I would think so.

So the question would simply be whether to build an academy for a long term boost, or lightbulb something immediately. We no longer need to lightbulb maths in time for the oracle, so unless there is a big advantage to bulbing philosophy or whatever, I would build the academy. Question is then whether to place it with the mines of Uppsala or the villages of Nidaros. Nidaros will certainly win out long term, but will we have a second GS to build an academy in Nidaros by then?

How long might it take for Gandhi to sail across and wage a war of conquest? Can we expect this relatively soon, or should we build a city next to Delhi, and let it flip to give Gandhi a foothold over here? Do we even still want to abandon this continent if India is not already on it?

OK - haven't heard from llib_rm so I will try to get up to speed and play this weekend so I guess "I got it"

Reading the posts & checking out the save here is my rough plan.

Tech: BW->myst->med->priest->CoL
Nidaros build: lib(pop-rush when possible)->warrior (until priesthood comes in)->Oracle (run scientists as pop allows)
Uppsala build: warrior->WB->lib
worker: finish farm, start mining gold unless Nidaros library needs a chop, chop for Oracle if I make it that far
exploration: try to explore north to see if there is a land-bridge between us and Gandhi

Comments?

On the academy vs. lightbulb question - won't come up in my set, but I lean towards lightbulbing. Not sure we can trust Gandhi to make better use of an academy than we can managing our tech path towards liberalism.

I, too, wonder how aggressive Gandhi will be about attacking us across the strait. If not too aggressive it will give us some time to chop all that jungle and maybe build a few well-cottaged cities before turning the continent over to him. Plus I think we would want to wait until berserkers so when we make our move it is to another continent already developed for us by some other nice, friendly civ.

OK - haven't heard from llib_rm so I will try to get up to speed and play this weekend so I guess "I got it"


Comments?




MS, I can squeeze in a turn set this weekend, but your plan looks OK too. It is your call, let me know...

I can play this weekend so no need to jump in at this point, llib_rm. Thanks for being flexible.

If I don't hear any objections to the plan I outlined I'll play tomorrow (Saturday).

I have played my set.

here is the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm4/One_Short_Straw_SG004_BC1600_01.CivWarlordsSave)

Here are my notes:
turn 0 - 2200 BC
warrior heading N

turn 1 - 2170 BC
Western warrior I'm going to keep close to home in case barbs show up
worker heads over to gold

turn 2 - 2140 BC

Turn 3 - 2110 BC

Turn 4 - 2080 BC
Barb warriors show up N and S. one warrior fortifies on jungle, the other on forested hill.
worker starts 1st gold mine

Turn 5 - 2050 BC
Southwestern warrior kills barb promote to woodsmanII and heal
Northern barb still not adjacent to N warrior - keep him where he is for now

Turn 6 - 2020BC
Northern barb moves out of sight...

Turn 7 - 1990BC
barb next to northern warrior (our guy is on forested hill, though)

Turn 8 - 1960BC
Northern warrior wins, promote to woodsmanI. Another barb is nearby
BW in, switch to myst (copper 3N, 1E of Nidaros)
revolt to slavery

Turn 9 - 1930BC
IBT Northern barb moves out of sight !?!
pop rush library in Nidaros, queue up warrior
There is a barb city SW on the spices (Hsung Nu)

Turn 10 - 1900BC
Library comes in - run 1 scientist
Northern barb back in sight...
Southern barb near our woodsmanII warrior on Jungle hill

Turn 11 - 1870BC
Uppsala warrior->WB
Nidaros warrior->warrior

Turn 12 - 1840BC
Nidaros warrior->warrior
worker finishes first gold mine

Turn 13 - 1810BC
barb warrior 3S 1W of uppsala - we have a warrior 1N of him on hills to defend

Turn 14 - 1780BC
our hilltop warrior defeats the barb (1.0 strength left - move to our territory to heal)
Northern warrior scouts a northern land-bridge to Gandhi's territory, but it is blocked by mountains!

Turn 15 - 1750BC
Mysticism in, research meditation
Looks like I have found Genghis to the south. I may open borders to explore his territory.

Turn 16 - 1720BC
Nidaros size 4, run 2 scientists

Turn 17 - 1690BC
OB with Genghis, scout Karakorum (capital)

Turn 18 - 1660BC
Northern warrior finally sees that elusive barb 1S

Turn 19 - 1630BC
IBT norther warrior defeats barb
Meditation in, research priesthood
Northern warrior scouts madras across strait
Southern warrior scouts Turfan (size 2 Mongol city). Genghis is busy hooking up horses.

Turn 20 - 1600BC
second gold mine is finished - Uppsala is working it
Priesthood in 3 turns


Gory details:
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (3.60)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Combat Odds: 3.0%
Turn 64, 2080 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: (Feature: +20%)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 26 (74/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 26 (48/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 26 (22/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 26 (0/100HP)
Turn 64, 2080 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 67, 1990 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!
Turn 67, 1990 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (3.70)
Turn 67, 1990 BC: Combat Odds: 1.2%
Turn 67, 1990 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 67, 1990 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 67, 1990 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (73/100HP)
Turn 67, 1990 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (46/100HP)
Turn 67, 1990 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (19/100HP)
Turn 67, 1990 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 27 (0/100HP)
Turn 67, 1990 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 68, 1960 BC: The revolution has begun!!!
Turn 68, 1960 BC: One Short Straw adopts Slavery!
Turn 68, 1960 BC: The anarchy is over! Your government is re-established.

Turn 69, 1930 BC: You have constructed a Library in Nidaros. Work has now begun on a Warrior.

Turn 72, 1840 BC: The borders of Nidaros have expanded!

Turn 73, 1810 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.00) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (2.70)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: Combat Odds: 21.3%
Turn 73, 1810 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 17 (83/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (77/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (54/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (31/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (8/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 17 (66/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 17 (49/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 23 (0/100HP)
Turn 73, 1810 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!

Turn 74, 1780 BC: You have discovered Mysticism!

Turn 78, 1660 BC: You have discovered Meditation!
Turn 78, 1660 BC: Barbarian's Warrior (2.20) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (3.60)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: Combat Odds: 4.1%
Turn 78, 1660 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: (Feature: +20%)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: Barbarian's Warrior is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 78, 1660 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Warrior!
Turn 78, 1660 BC: While defending, your Warrior has killed a Barbarian Warrior!


Turn order -

mdy
RobertTheBruce
mboza
mushroomshirt - just played
TDK - still on vacation (On Deck)
llib_rm - Up

I think since TDK is still out that you should go next if you have time, llib_rm

Well played. If all goes well we should get the CS slingshot on the last turn of the next turnset.


I, too, wonder how aggressive Gandhi will be about attacking us across the strait. If not too aggressive it will give us some time to chop all that jungle and maybe build a few well-cottaged cities before turning the continent over to him. Plus I think we would want to wait until berserkers so when we make our move it is to another continent already developed for us by some other nice, friendly civ.

There is probably no immediate danger of being attacked by Gandi until 500BC-0BC. Even then in the early game I have never seen an AI amphibious assault consisting of more than four units.

Longer term I think we need to know whether we need astronomy to get to another continent. Another related question is whether it would be worth killing the Mongols to gift their land to Gandi later. If we did it would boost Gandis research and productivity, on the other hand it could stop him getting any tech`s from trade for a while.

Hi guys, I see you have made really good headway. Popping Math is more than I dared hope for, yes!

I got it, but will need some time to catch up on discussion and planning. Will post plan later today.

TDK

My plan so far:
T0: Shuffle workers from the corn to the lake to knock off a turn on Priesthood.

T1: Will whip warrior in Nidaros and apply overflow to Oracle.

T4: Will go explore with the workboat.

The overarching priority will be to balance research and production to get the CS slingshot as early as possible and minimize the risk of losing the Oracle race. Nidaros will be pretty much preoccupied with the Oracle but what about Uppsala? I will probably build a worker and some police there at some point, should we also construct a library there?(Or wait for religion to pop borders?)

That's it for now. Please comment and I will play later today.

TDK

My plan so far:
T0: Shuffle workers from the corn to the lake to knock off a turn on Priesthood.

T1: Will whip warrior in Nidaros and apply overflow to Oracle.

T4: Will go explore with the workboat.

The overarching priority will be to balance research and production to get the CS slingshot as early as possible and minimize the risk of losing the Oracle race. Nidaros will be pretty much preoccupied with the Oracle but what about Uppsala? I will probably build a worker and some police there at some point, should we also construct a library there?(Or wait for religion to pop borders?)

That's it for now. Please comment and I will play later today.

TDK

TDK- welcome back!

Sounds like a good plan

I like the library in Uppsala, there is lots of commerce there and we need to prioritize the tech-race this game.

Another related question is whether it would be worth killing the Mongols to gift their land to Gandhi later. If we did it would boost Gandhi's research and productivity, on the other hand it could stop him getting any tech`s from trade for a while.

I think attacking the Mongols is a good idea to clear the continent for Gandhi. Eventually I think we will want to leave all together & settle somewhere far away from Gandhi. But I agree we need to wait until we have met some other civs to see what the astronomy situation is. If Gandhi needs optics to meet & trade with other civs, we should wait on them for a while.

Workboat exploration (from TDK's plan) will help us answer this question about optics... (If we find we need optics, maybe we should gift some caravels to civs we meet so they can meet Gandhi earlier).

I'm at turn 19 with one turn to Oracle and one turn to CoL. Will the tech come in before the Oracle or is it the other way around? In other words, will I need to delay the Oracle for a turn?

TDK

The tech will come before the Oracle, so there is no need to delay it.

I just deleted my writeup twice(!) so this will be supershort:

I decide to keep the scientist working to get the early scientist, this probably cost us another chopped forest in the end. We are one great person point from a scientist, I would use the scientist on an Academy in Uppsala.

I built a Library in Uppsala and started a worker(6turns). The workboat was sent exploring the rear of the Indian lands as our scout spotted no Indian seapower.

We got CoL and the Oracle on turn 20. I have moved no units and made no revolutions to allow us to discuss what exactly to do. Tech is set to the Wheel(my suggestion for next tech). Nidaros to Settler(my suggestion for next build).

We have lost no units and our fogbuster shield is in good shape.

TDK

I agree with researching the wheel next. After that perhaps iron working-sailing-pottery-metal casting-machinery?

Iron working will reval iron and allow swordsman, it will also allow us to build decent cities in the jungle. Sailing will be needed soon so we can build triemes to protect our fishing boats. The one obvious missing tech from this path is alphabet, but how useful is it really to us? It seems that the only civs we will have contact with until optics are Mongolia and India. We can`t trade with India, and Mongolia probably won`t have enough to make it worth the detour in the immediate future. Giving alphabet to Gengis would open up the possibility of trades between India and Mongolia, but as civs only trade techs they don`t think they have a monopoly in there would be little if any trade between them.

I would complete the settler in the capital and whip it for two pop when possible. After that we could build a barracks, then some decent units there.
The best production site available to us seems to be purple cross. Blue coss would not be as good but would allow us to build ships there.

Upsulla can finish the worker, and then build a workboat to allow us to work 3 gold mines. Once sailing is in we would need to chop a trieme there to stop Gandi pillaging the WB.

We could save the GS to lightbulb philosophy after our 3rd city is founded, this would give it a free border pop from taoism, and delay the AI in the liberalism race. It would also allow our second GS to lightbulb optics. If we are abandoning our continent after astronomy an acadmey will probably give us fewer beakers than a lightbulb.



In the longer term I think we should try a sword/beserker rush against mongolia so we can gift their land to India. We could leave them with 1-2 poor cities so we could use them to channel techs to India later.

We could save the GS to lightbulb philosophy after our 3rd city is founded, this would give it a free border pop from taoism, and delay the AI in the liberalism race. It would also allow our second GS to lightbulb optics. If we are abandoning our continent after astronomy an acadmey will probably give us fewer beakers than a lightbulb.


I agree with lightbulbing instead of an academy.

Production city sounds good. I think OK if not on the coast - it can still spam berserkers.

I would go with the purple site.

But the blue site would also allow a cottage city by the river, even if it is a bit short of space between the blue site, uppsala and madras. With the purple site, all the remaining city sites to the north are poor.

Hey RobertTheBruce - I saw you scored in the top of the latest HoF update. Take that plus all the medals you've been winning lately in W/GOTMs and I think it's time to face facts - you're one of those elite players! Congratulations!

Thanks mushroomshirt,
That was my personal record score. I wouldn't call myself elite until I can win at least an occasional game at Diety. I certainly am a better player than I was 6 months ago.

It looks like I am up. Things have been incredibly busy the last month, but I believe I can get a set of turns in this week. I will post a plan tonight and play by Thursday.

Here's the plan:

Switch to Bureaucracy
Mine the copper
Connect the gold

Build queue:
Nidaros Settler->Axe
Upsalla Worker->WB

Research Wheel->Sailing->IW

Settle on Purple

What to do with our scientist?? With my luck we will get a prophet. :lol: If we are agreed to abandon our homeland, then an academy is less beakers for us, but not less overall. I assume Ghandi could make good use of an academy, no? How do you envision our departure? Do we conquer the continent and hold until Astro, then walk away? ...or another approach?

How do you envision our departure? Do we conquer the continent and hold until Astro, then walk away? ...or another approach?

Assuming there is no-one else within galley range we might want to wait on conquering the Monglos until optics so Gandhi has someone to tech-trade with (I assume that the Mongols won't think they have a monopoly over Gandhi since he is at war with us and will still trade techs with him - anyone know this?).

Assuming there is no-one else within galley range we might want to wait on conquering the Monglos until optics so Gandhi has someone to tech-trade with (I assume that the Mongols won't think they have a monopoly over Gandhi since he is at war with us and will still trade techs with him - anyone know this?).

Looking at the map it seems unlikely that we will be able to reach anyone else before optics. We could still reduce the mongols to a single city, to give Gandi someone to trade with. Mongolia would not research much on her own, but we could gift techs to her to trade with Gandi. Even if we did not conquer mongolia anyway we would still have to do this as Gandi tends to tech much faster as Gengis, this will be espesially true in this game as Gandi has 2 gem mines and 1 gold mine in his capital. Gengis does not even seem to have a single cottage yet. Gengis will also be much less dangerous with just one city.

If we wanted to try to gift techs to Gandi via Gengis we may want to go wheel-alphabet next and then try to trade alphabet for pottery/sailing/iron working with Gengis, though we may not have much luck with this.

What to do with our scientist?? With my luck we will get a prophet. If we are agreed to abandon our homeland, then an academy is less beakers for us, but not less overall. I assume Ghandi could make good use of an academy, no? How do you envision our departure? Do we conquer the continent and hold until Astro, then walk away? ...or another approach
A prophet would not be too bad-we could build a shrine for Gandi.

Looking at the map it seems unlikely that we will be able to reach anyone else before optics. We could still reduce the mongols to a single city, to give Gandi someone to trade with. Mongolia would not research much on her own, but we could gift techs to her to trade with Gandi. Even if we did not conquer mongolia anyway we would still have to do this as Gandi tends to tech much faster as Gengis, this will be espesially true in this game as Gandi has 2 gem mines and 1 gold mine in his capital. Gengis does not even seem to have a single cottage yet. Gengis will also be much less dangerous with just one city.


I like this idea (reducing the mongols to one city). Seems like a good way to go since we just need the mongols for tech trading to gandhi as you point out, mdy.

What to do with our scientist?? With my luck we will get a prophet.
If we fire the scientists in the capital we can guarantee that the next GP we get is a scientist in time to lightbulb optics(if we use the 1st to discover philosophy after we get the wheel), by hiring two of them in gold city. This would also allow for more effective whipping in the capital.

Here is the save:

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm4/One_Short_Straw_SG004_BC0700_01.CivWarlordsSave

...and the gory details:

1) 1000BC: Mine copper, switch to Bureacracy
IBT: #4 in culture
2) 985BC: Scout Khan. It looks like we are on small continent.
3) 970BC: Hypatia Great Scientist born->sleep for later lightbulb. Nidaros whip settler (2 pop)
4) 955BC: Nidaros settler->barracks, move settler & missionary to purple
5) 940BC: Zzzz
6) 925BC: Wheel->Sailing, Upsalla worker->workboat
IBT Great Wall BIDL
7) 910BC: Zzzz
8) 895BC: Founded Haibathu on purple, Haibathu->worker, Haibathu spread Conf, Nidaros barracks->warrior
9) 880BC: Nidaros +1 pop, Nidaros queue warrior->worker
10) 865BC: Zzzz
11) 850BC: Zzzz
12) 835BC: Sailing->IW
13) 805BC: Zzzz
14) 790BC: Copper connected
15) 745BC: Nidaros worker->spear (was warrior from queue)
16) 760BC: Zzzz
17) 745BC: Gold & horse connected
18) 730BC: Zzzz
19) 715BC: Upsalla work boat->barracks
20) 700BC: Iron Working->???, Iron south of Haithabu

Plan for the next turnset:

Research: pottery-metal casting

The GS can either found an academy in Uppsala or lightbulb philosophy. Lightbulbing philosophy would allow us to lightbulb optics, but overall I think we will get to Astronomy quickest if we found the Academy.

Should we found our 4th city or capture it from Gengis? I am leaning towards founding it ourselves. Green circle would allow us to work to gems and seafoods, but they would need a trieme to protect them from Gandi before we could use a workboat, which would all have to be built in that city. Red circle would also get the two gems, corn, and 2 sugars, but will have health issues until we can chop some of the jungle. Blue circle would also be a reasonable site, but we would have to raise Old Serai first.


Nidaros: finish spear-axe-(settler if we build our 4th city)-military. Maybe we should insert a granary somewhere here to improve whipping?

Haithabu: It would probably be more efficent to switch production to a barracks, let it grow to size two, whip it and allow the overflow to finish off the worker. After that we can build military here.

Uppsala: Build a trieme to protect workboat, finish barracks.

Shall we reduce the length of the turnsets to 10-15 turns now, or keep them at 20?

The GS can either found an academy in Uppsala or lightbulb philosophy. Lightbulbing philosophy would allow us to lightbulb optics, but overall I think we will get to Astronomy quickest if we found the Academy.



I thought the consensus was to wait and lightbulb. I would have built the academy right off if that was the direction instead of losing 20 turns.

I thought the consensus was to wait and lightbulb. I would have built the academy right off if that was the direction instead of losing 20 turns.

I thought that too, but getting a 2nd GS in time to bulb optics is more costly than I thought. There are essentially 5 ways we could get it:

1) Keep 2 scientist in the capital and hope we gat a GS at about 50% odds. This would drasticly reduce the effectivness of whipping in our capital, signficantly reduce the bureacracy hammer bonus, and dealy our fourth city.
If we got a GP the best we could do is to build a shrine.

2) Swich to pacifism and keep 2 scientists in the capital, this has the same disadvantages as 1), and would also increase the upkeep for our army, slowing down research and involve 4 additional turns of anarchy. It would give us a 50% chance of getting 1 scientist and 1 prophet, 33% cahnce of 2 scientists, and 16% chance of getting two prophets.

3) Stop working gold mines in Upsulla until we have two scientists there. This will significantly slow down research in the short term, but will guarantee a GS.

4) Start hiring scientists in Upsulla only when we can also work all the gold mines. This gives us a 100% chance of getting a GS but requires pacifism.

5) We could get a 100% chance of GS in our third city, but then it would not be able to build up our military quickly. It would also require pacifism.


Which method do you suggest we use?

I thought that too, but getting a 2nd GS in time to bulb optics is more costly than I thought. There are essentially 5 ways we could get it:

1) Keep 2 scientist in the capital and hope we gat a GS at about 50% odds. This would drasticly reduce the effectivness of whipping in our capital, signficantly reduce the bureacracy hammer bonus, and dealy our fourth city.
If we got a GP the best we could do is to build a shrine.

2) Swich to pacifism and keep 2 scientists in the capital, this has the same disadvantages as 1), and would also increase the upkeep for our army, slowing down research and involve 4 additional turns of anarchy. It would give us a 50% chance of getting 1 scientist and 1 prophet, 33% cahnce of 2 scientists, and 16% chance of getting two prophets.

3) Stop working gold mines in Upsulla until we have two scientists there. This will significantly slow down research in the short term, but will guarantee a GS.

4) Start hiring scientists in Upsulla only when we can also work all the gold mines. This gives us a 100% chance of getting a GS but requires pacifism.

5) We could get a 100% chance of GS in our third city, but then it would not be able to build up our military quickly. It would also require pacifism.


Which method do you suggest we use?

Seems to me that switching to pacifism in the short term is not terrible. We get a larger military upkeep but we don't need a huge military until we are ready to go to war. I'm not sure we need to rush war with the Mongols until we are getting close to astronomy and can continue the war to the other continents.

Also seems like we can calculate how may beakers we lose vs. how many we gain if we choose choice #3.

My 2cents is either #3 or #4. We can make the decision about which one to use by figuring out which will come first, the scientist or machinery / compass.

At our current rate of research we will have both machinery and compass in 64 turns. If we choose option #3 we will have the great scientist in 50 turns, but will stretch out our research rate beyond the 64 turns. So we would get the GS too early. Seems like we have time to grow uppsala so it can work the gold and 2 scientists without impacting our GS strategy. I don't think pacifism is necessary since we are research limited rather than GS generation limited. Also since Nidaros is 129 turns away from a GP, I don't think we need to be too worried about generating GP there.

So to me seems like we go #4, but maybe even working the fish preferentially to get us up to size so that in 14 turns or so we can turn on the scientists and still work the gold. I would also switch from barracks to a trireme to guard our nets from Gandhi.

I would still prefer an academy in Uppsala though I realize I'm probably a minority. The argument; we will get to Machinery and Beserkers earlier and we can then attack the Mongols and "gift" our academy and core cities to India earlier(or are we planning on attacking Mongolia with swords?). I don't see how lightbulping Philosophy, and thereby delaying Liberalism, really helps us. My gameplan would be to get to beserkers and attack Mongolia then, in the meantime we would develop our lands for Gandhi to pick up when we take Mongolia. Gandhi will probably start to push towards the continent when he is out of space and this would roughly correspond with our war with Mongolia.
Another option is to build green circle ASAP and found the academy there for culture and then develop the city's gems and wait for Gandhi to offensively "protect" his capital. That way we would bring him to the continent early.

Other comments:
Uppsala should definitely work the fish and the pig for 4 turns to grow to size 4. It would then grow to size 5 in time for the completion of the 3rd goldmine.

We should look to destroy Hsung-Nu soon, this would allow India to have foreign trade routes with Mongolia(worth 2.5 as much as domestic). We would also pick up valuable XP for the war with Mongolia.

I checked Gandhis probability of razing captured cities; it is (not surprisingly) 0% so we don't have to worry about that happening.

I'm fine with 20, 15 or 10 turns for now, as long as the game is posted when controversial decisions are to be made.

TDK

I`ve just looked at the save and at the moment it would take us 90 turns to research astronomy! This will come down , even so on this time scale I see no way that a lightbulb can be more efficent than an academy if we try to generate our next GS in gold city. The only way I can see that lightbulbing philosophy would boost long term research more than an academy is if we ran Caste System+Pacifism, and used the capital as a GP farm. I will try to post a revised plan tomorrow.

Which method do you suggest we use?


I actually liked the academy approach, but it sounded like the team was against that. My frustration is waiting 20 turns with an idle great scientist.

Should we found our 4th city or capture it from Gengis? I am leaning towards founding it ourselves. Green circle would allow us to work to gems and seafoods, but they would need a trieme to protect them from Gandi before we could use a workboat, which would all have to be built in that city. Red circle would also get the two gems, corn, and 2 sugars, but will have health issues until we can chop some of the jungle. Blue circle would also be a reasonable site, but we would have to raise Old Serai first.


I lean towards war with Gengis. We could cripple him good with a sword/axe rush before we need cats.

Plan A:

Whip a settler in the capital to found a city at red circle, then set to max population growth, chopping a granary.

Lightbulb taoism once red circle is founded and use the free missionary to spread taoism to capital.

Revolt to taoism/caste system/pacifism and hire as many scientists as possible while still working the three food tiles (with a trading post Upsulla can still work all 3 gold mines without the pigs- but it will take a little longer to get the third mine running as the workers will be delayed in the capital)

Build a taoist temple in capital

This should give us three G.P. in the capital, the first of which will probably be a prophet, which could be used to found a shrine we could gift to Gandi. The first GS could then be used to found an academy, and the second to lightbulb Optics.

Plan B:
Found an academy in Upsulla, build a fourth city, then whip out an army to take on the mongols.

The advantages of A is that it will get us to Astronomy/Optics quickest, so we could gift our land to Gandi earlier, it also givs us a shrine to gift him, as well as an extra technology (pacifism), it will also delay the AI in the liberalism race. The disadvantages are that it will delay our war with the mongols, no whip, we will get berserkers a few turns later, and it requires a lot more micromanagement.
There is also about a 20% chance of getting two Great Prophets.

Which should we use?

I prefer red circle as the fourth city site because green circle can`t work it`s high food tiles without triemes to protect them, these would all have to be built in the city, which will take a long time , espesially if we use plan A. Blue Circle requires a war with the Mongols which will take some time to prepare for

Mdy, great analysis. I looked some more at the game and I agree with plan A. Pop as many scientists as possible and go for Lib and grab Astronomy as the free tech. A scientist for Edu would be especially usefull.
As you said, the drawback is the slow military buildup but it can be remedied somewhat by some serious chopping in Haithabu.

Old Sarai is just fine where it is, I see no reason to destroy it and replace it with a coastal city.

TDK

That looks like a very solid plan Mdy.

I agree with plan A as well. I think the faster we get of this continent the faster Gandhi will build a spaceship. "Population is power" is probably the best strategy.

I don't think delaying berserkers a few turns will be a big problem. Mongolia shouldn't be a big problem and we have no other pressing need for berserkers until Astronomy.

I looked some more at the game and I agree with plan A. Pop as many scientists as possible and go for Lib and grab Astronomy as the free tech. A scientist for Edu would be especially usefull.

If we go down the liberalism path we need the following extra techs: paper(1345), education(4036), liberalism (3139). Astronomy costs 4485 beakers. For this path to give us Astronomy as quickly as researcing it directly we would need 2 additional GS to lightbulb Education. Getting 1 is certainly possible (at the expense of delaying the army build up longer), however getting two in time is probably not realistic, though I guess we could use the second GS to lightbulb a tech instead of using it as an acadmey. Even so this path would probably still be slower by around 20 turns.

Old Sarai is just fine where it is, I see no reason to destroy it and replace it with a coastal city.

A second coastal city would be useful when the time camt to build galleons asap. neither of these points will be an issue in the next turnset though.

I like directly researching Astronomy as well. If we get galleons out quickly, we may be able to cripple the other civs and leave liberalism for Gandhi.

Edit: What are the rules for the # of civs knowing a technology. If we eliminate all other civs and stay ahead of Gandhi in research, does it count as 1/1 other civs know a tech or 1/6 starting civs?

Got the save. Playing now.

[edit] I have stopped playing after 1 turn due to an unwelvome developent. Gandi has a trieme which is going to pillage our fishing net, and I can`t see any way of stopping him. This will ruin our previous plan. I think it may be better to abandon the plan to lightbulb optics and use the GS to build an academy in the capital. If we cottage spam it would be very powerful under bureacracy.


The save is attatched.

Even if we rebuild the nets, and stick a trieme on top of them, will that be sufficient to deter Gandhi from pillaging it, or are we just relying on the ~60%? chance of our trieme beating one of his? Perhaps any long term plan requiring the fishing boats will be a mistake if Gandhi just sends two triemes once we have one.

I would like to propose an alternative GP strategy which would get us to Astronomy at about the same time as researching it directly [about 2-6 turns longer due to the need to research philosophy first]. It involves founding an academy in the capital, and then building the Great Library in our third stategy. If we run two scientists in that city we can generate 2 GS to lightbulb education, we could then research astronomy via liberalism. The delay in researching alphabet/polytheism/masonry/literature would be partially offset by the extra beakers from the GS. It would also allow us to trade for calendar. Caste System/Pacifism is unnessaesay, saving 6 turns of anarchy. There is 0 chance of GP pollution. This path also gives us paper which would allow us to trade for world maps. The disadvantages are that we would only have the capital ( and gold city) dedicated to building up the military for a while, and we might lose the Great Library.

A possible variant of this would involve sword rushing Old Serai, founding a city 1 tile east to grab the marble and using it to speed up the Greal Library. This would speed up research and allow us to start building up our military in third city sooner and reduce the chance of being beaten to the Great Library, but it would increase the risk of a military disaster in the short term.

Should we do this or abandon trying any fancy GP slingshots? If we do do it should we try to grab the marble quickly?

If we went down this path I would reseach alphabet after pottery.

[edit]As this is a major departure from the previously discusssed startegy I will wait for the team to comment on it before playing further.


Even if we rebuild the nets, and stick a trieme on top of them, will that be sufficient to deter Gandhi from pillaging it, or are we just relying on the ~60%? chance of our trieme beating one of his? Perhaps any long term plan requiring the fishing boats will be a mistake if Gandhi just sends two triemes once we have one.

In this part of the game the AI won`t attack lone triemes, but later they will if they can attack with 2 in the same turn. As Gandi has managed to pillage our fish before we can protect it I propose that we don`t build a replacement workboat, and use the city to build a few axes instead.

[edit] Congratulations to everyone in team Short Straw in SGOTM 3. Tying team One seems appropriate now we are playing together.

I'm pretty bad at assessing these grand strategies. mdy, seems like yours is well thought out. Don't hold up on my account.

It is clear we must do something different since we will lose the fish which is essential for our previous GP strategy.

I like the variant you describe where we attack old Sarai. We need to get off this continent ASAP and the faster we research astro the better... If Gandhi has a trireme who knows how soon he will start to land troops. The sooner we leave the less we have to confront him.

T2: Start researching alphabet. Found academy in Capital. Our fishing boat is pillaged.

T3: Whip trieme in capital to protect our fish from another one of Gandis triemes.

T5: Finish axe in capital

T6: Finish barracks in Upsulla

T8: Gandi builds stonehenge

T9: Finish axe in Nidaros. Gandi builds Stonehenge

T10: Whip worker in Haithabu

T12: We have discovered alphabet.

T13: Forest grows near Nirados

T14: We discover pottery. Axe built in Upsulla

T15: Build spear in Nirados

T16: Whip settler in Nirados, build iron mine.

T17: We discover polytheism.

This was a convenient point to stop so I have uploaded the save.

I have kept a surplus of gold to allow for emergency warrior upgrading if Gandi does something unexpected.

Unfortunatly Gandi discovered literature sometime in the last 5 turns so we are going to have to move quickly to get the Great Library.

As long as no reinforcement arrive in Old Serai, and no walls are built we should be able to raze her, protect our new city and the marble quarry with the 2 spears, 1 sword, and 2 axes, 1 settler and 2 workers.

Should we wait for this force to be assembled outside his borders before declaring war? If we did it would reduce the chances of reinforcents arriving, but if we attacked next turn we could immediatly steal 3 workers, with the spears/nearby warrior. If he is chopping walls/archers there it could save us a lot of trouble if we stopped this.

Old Serai has to be raised as we can`t give it a border pop in time. I prefer settling city four 1 tile east of Old Serai, but an alternative location would be directly on top of the marble, which would allow our workers to do somthing else and speed up our access to marble. We would also only have 1 tile to defend instead of two.

Gengis will trade us monarchy and masonary for polytheism and code of laws. I suggest we make this trade just before we declare war.

The library in city 3 will need 1 chop , then a whip once the unhappinees has gone away. The GL will need 4 forest chops. Two workers dedicated to this should give us the GL around 100-50 BC. If we dedicated all four of our workers to this and used the pre chop trick we could shave over 100 years off the date. We could possibly get it even quicker if we whipped it as well.

Long term I think we need to chop/whip out swords in the capital to take down Gengis before he get`s longbows (at the moment he is only 1 tech away). We should even be able to take the capital with 2:1 superiority in swords.

Turn 121, 685 BC: The borders of Uppsala have expanded!
Turn 121, 685 BC: The borders of Haithabu have expanded!

Turn 123, 655 BC: You have trained a Trireme in Nidaros. Work has now begun on a Axeman.

Turn 127, 595 BC: The Temple of Artemis has been built in a far away land!

Turn 128, 580 BC: Gandhi has completed Stonehenge!

Turn 129, 565 BC: Gandhi adopts Hereditary Rule!

Turn 131, 535 BC: You have trained a Worker in Haithabu. Work has now begun on a Library.

Turn 133, 505 BC: You have discovered Alphabet!

Turn 134, 490 BC: The borders of Nidaros have expanded!

Turn 135, 475 BC: You have discovered Pottery!

Turn 137, 445 BC: Confucianism has spread in Nidaros.

Turn 138, 430 BC: You have discovered Polytheism!

You may wish to copy it to Notepad for reference when you write your turn set post. It includes any entries you added with the in-game Chat facility

Who is up next, is it RobertTheBruce?

worker steal is very tempting...

I think we are still on

mdy - Just played
RobertTheBruce - Up
mboza - On deck
mushroomshirt
TDK
llib_rm

I agree that the worker steal is tempting. Can/should we wait two turns for Genghis to clear the jungle?

And the alternative is to wait some 10 turns or so to connect the iron, build a sword and march south with 1 of the 2 axes we already have, and the one building? Even stealing the workers and having them build a road home would speed the eventual attack by a turn or two. Also, if we attack now, will the workers that we do not steal retreat into old Serai, awaiting capture?

I've got some rl problems so mboza can go if he wants.

Not sure why we wouldn't take all 4 axes (+1 being built in the capital) and march on the mongols now. We could have 5 axes, 2 spears and a warrior in position in 10 turns. We would lose a fair number of units in the fight, but could definitely take the city then even before a sword is built.

I like the idea of waiting 2 turns until the jungle is cleared, but does anyone know if the workers can move the turn they finish the farm? Wouldn't want to bet wrong and have those workers move away.

If we wait we could move the warrior down from the capital now for a possible extra worker steal. He couldn't be in position for a steal for 3 turns, though unless a worker shows up to farm the northern sugar.

I agree with the worker steal, I think we should do it in 2 turns for the clearing of the jungle. Attacking so soon will let us keep a few forests for chopping/whipping a quick library. I would keep Old Sarai and simply prechop forests whereever we are building the GL, when the marble goes online we finish the forests and whip the rest in 1 turns. This way we reduce the risks of losing production if another civ builds it.
I would use the settler to build a new city near the gems and use our new workers to improve them and build cottages.

It's a shame the axes are in the north and the spears in the south and not the other way around, or we could rush it. Mdy, where is Gandhi's boat? Is it near the capital?

TDK

I agree with doing the worker steal after the jungle is cleared.



Raising the city would allow us to get the GL around 10 turns earlier, reducing the chance that Gandi-or worse someone else gets it first. If we diverted some of the workers elsewhere we could be delayed even more. As Gandi already has literature this could be critical. We could cut about another three/four turns of this time if we whipped another unit in the capital before the unhappiness from the previous whip has disappeared. With hereditary rule this would not be to bad.



Not sure why we wouldn't take all 4 axes (+1 being built in the capital) and march on the mongols now. We could have 5 axes, 2 spears and a warrior in position in 10 turns. We would lose a fair number of units in the fight, but could definitely take the city then even before a sword is built.


This would be quicker, but it would leave us more vulnerable if Gandi attacked us.

It's a shame the axes are in the north and the spears in the south and not the other way around, or we could rush it. Mdy, where is Gandhi's boat? Is it near the capital?

The axes in the north to defend against Gandi. The spears are in the south because Gengis soes not have metals, but does have horses. Gandi`s trieme is somewhere between our capital and the barbarian city where our workboat is.

Gandhi is the most peacefull guy on the planet, I don't think we should be too worried about him.
I still don't see how burning Old Sarai is a good idea, I would rather let Gandhi have the GL then. I don't think we need the GL so much that we should delay our settling and economic growth. Old Sarai is also on a hill which is nice.

[Edit]I also think we should work the horse instead of a mine in the capital.

TDK

We could take Old Serai and whip a monument, netting us the culture pop 15 turns later. A library would probably need two chops and then a whip, + seven turns for the culture. We already have the settler so it can go down and found as soon as Old Serai is razed, at the cost of not using the settler elsewhere.

Is the plan still to build GL in Haithabu? It will need two chops to finish the library before it can start the GL when we discover Lit. Completing the library more slowly, and using the chops after the quarry is up would be more efficient, but we have forests to spare.

I think we can place 3 combat 1, cover axes, plus the two spears, outside Old Serai before Lit in 7 turns. If we only face two archers, we would be 5.5 vs 6, which should be enough provided nothing is ready to counter attack. The other 2 axes would be 3 turns behind, with a new sword as well. I cannot see Gandhi being a serious threat yet, but we could plan to keep at least 110 gold for emergency upgrading a warrior to cover that eventuality.

GL is 525 hammers, which is 11.6 chops without marble, or 6 with. We are planning four, so the rest comes from Haithabu, currently producing 7 hammers/turn, and an extra mine might be worthwhile, taking it up to 10, or 20 with the quarry.

I reckon Dehli is currently producing 15 hammers/turn, + 50% for industrious, gives us 25 turns from when India starts, assuming there is no marble hidden away. But hopefully Gandhi is using his stone under Dehli to build the pyramids.

Of course, losing to Gandhi is not a total disaster, but this is a fairly awkward way simply to generate cash.

Do we go for peace as soon as Old Serai falls, or would anyone press on?

And what is next tech after Lit?

Alternatively, what is our best alternative to the GL plan? Do we need to rebuild the nets outside Uppsalla for GPs.

Do we go for peace as soon as Old Serai falls, or would anyone press on?


We should probably evaluate this after we see how many units we lose in Old Serai. If our army is pretty much in-tact, probably not a bad idea to take another city or do some pillaging. 5 axes, a sword and two spears are pretty formidable I think if we get lucky and don't lose more than a unit or so.

We could take Old Serai and whip a monument, netting us the culture pop 15 turns later. A library would probably need two chops and then a whip, + seven turns for the culture.
The fastest way would definitely be the library. We could chop 2 forests while the city is in resistance anyway and whip one pop. I think we should build the GL in Nidaros, if at all...

TDK

Gandhi is the most peacefull guy on the planet, I don't think we should be too worried about him.

We did the same with the fishing boat, now we are regretting it.

I still don't see how burning Old Sarai is a good idea, I would rather let Gandhi have the GL then. I don't think we need the GL so much that we should delay our settling and economic growth. Old Sarai is also on a hill which is nice.


The key limitation we are facing is the time needed to research astronomy. Failing to get the GL could easily cost us 4-5000 beakers. If we also built the National Epic we could get a 3rd GS to lightbulb philosophy, in which case losing the GL could cost us well over 6000 beakers- a massive effect which will outway a 10-20 turn delay in the 5th city. It would also waste the turns put into alphabet/polytheism. Not raising the city would delay the GL by around 10 critical turns.

The other advantage of raising is that we get a 2nd coastal city to build galleons once we have astronomy, this could save us sevaral turns.

At this point we are unlikly to capture any buildings there anyway.

I think we can place 3 combat 1, cover axes, plus the two spears, outside Old Serai before Lit in 7 turns. If we only face two archers, we would be 5.5 vs 6, which should be enough provided nothing is ready to counter attack. The other 2 axes would be 3 turns behind, with a new sword as well. I cannot see Gandhi being a serious threat yet, but we could plan to keep at least 110 gold for emergency upgrading a warrior to cover that eventuality.


I would be O.K. with moving our axes to take Old Serai provided we keep enough gold for emergency upgrades. Reducing the risk of losing the GL is probably worth the risk.

Do we go for peace as soon as Old Serai falls, or would anyone press on?

And what is next tech after Lit?

Alternatively, what is our best alternative to the GL plan? Do we need to rebuild the nets outside Uppsalla for GPs.

I would press on once we have a big enough force. We are going to want to take most of his cities anyway, and the quicker we do it the easier it will be.

If we make the tech trade with Gengis before declaring war we could go: metal casting- machinery for beserkers.

Without the GL I can`t see any GS slingshots we can do which will significantly speed up our process. If we don`t go for the GL the best alternative I can see is to cottage spam the capital and to research astronomy directly.

The key limitation we are facing is the time needed to research astronomy. Failing to get the GL could easily cost us 4-5000 beakers. If we also built the National Epic we could get a 3rd GS to lightbulb philosophy, in which case losing the GL could cost us well over 6000 beakers- a massive effect which will outway a 10-20 turn delay in the 5th city. It would also waste the turns put into alphabet/polytheism. Not raising the city would delay the GL by around 10 critical turns.
Without the GL I can`t see any GS slingshots we can do which will significantly speed up our process. If we don`t go for the GL the best alternative I can see is to cottage spam the capital and to research astronomy directly.
I agree on both, and that's why I think we should abandon the GL project and build our economy. Abandoning the GL would surely mean switching to Metal Casting right away and research Astronomy directly. If we pop a scientist we could still lightbulb Optics for the early contacts.
The extra techs needed for a Liberalism slingshot(which is the only way a great person program makes sense), are Philosophy(1800), Paper(1350), Education(4000) and Liberalism(3100). This would save us the trouble of researching Astronomy(4500), but it's still a net expense of 5750 beakers. I don't think it's very realistic to produce that many beakers from the extra GP's produced with the GL and an expanded GP program, and in any case I don't think it's worth the try with our relatively food scarce lands. I would much rather expand our economy fast(by keeping Old Sarai, build Gem city etc.) and build an army which is much easier if we don't work many specialists. In short, I think we will end up getting Astronomy earlier by this approach without the inherent risks associated with GL and Lib race.

I agree with trading our techs to the Mongols, there are potential trades that Gandhi and Genghis could do(Math), and us declaring on Genghis could facilitate the necessary relations boost between them("mutual military struggle").

TDK

We did the same with the fishing boat, now we are regretting it.


I think this was a different situation. We had no conceivable way to defend those boats (no pop rushing or upgrades could get a trireme out in time). With our northern cities we can pop rush and upgrade if Gandhi lands an invasion force (most likely archers). In the last SGOTM we (short straw) were surprised by alex landing two galleys on our continent. We were totally unprepared but managed to beat him back quite nicely.

I think even if we are very conservative we need at most one axe and one warrior to defend, but I would be satisfied with only one warrior.

The extra techs needed for a Liberalism slingshot(which is the only way a great person program makes sense), are Philosophy(1800), Paper(1350), Education(4000) and Liberalism(3100). This would save us the trouble of researching Astronomy(4500), but it's still a net expense of 5750 beakers. I don't think it's very realistic to produce that many beakers from the extra GP's produced with the GL and an expanded GP program, and in any case I don't think it's worth the try with our relatively food scarce lands.

WE can bulb education with 2 GS (4000 beakers). If we build the National Epic we will have a 70% chance of getting 3 GS, the third could bulb philosophy (1800 beakers). We will get an extra 22 beakers per turn from the GL/GS (1760 beakers over 80 turns). This speeds up our discovery of Astronomy by about 1800 beakers. In addition if we did this we would probably be able to trade for calendar, speeding things up by another 850 beakers. This research path would also give us paper to allow us to trade for worldmaps (if we wanted this tech and researched astronomy directly this would cost an additional 1350 beakers), as well as 3 aditional highly tradeable techs.

I can`t see how getting a 5th city built slightly erlier can make up for this. If we beeline for the GL as quick as we can then is no significant risk of losing it or the liberalism slingshot. There is a 25% chance of getting 1 GA, in which case the research in would only be slightly quicker via liberalism, but we would gain additional techs and a GA is not entirly useless- we could use it to relieve the cultural pressure on our newly captured cities when we invade another continent. There is a 5% risk of getting more than 1 artist, only in this case would the direct research of Astronomy be quicker.(We could avoid this by not building the National Epic, but then we would not be able to lightbulb philosophy).

[edit] The other advantage that occurs to me is that it would hopefully give us another GS to found an academy in our newly captured lands.

I must say that I favour the higher risk / higher reward strategies, so I lean towards the raze Old Serai and go for GP strategy. But i will not start playing just yet, to see if we can get some sort of consensus.

I must say that I favour the higher risk / higher reward strategies, so I lean towards the raze Old Serai and go for GP strategy. But i will not start playing just yet, to see if we can get some sort of consensus.

I am ok with this approach.

My turn is not up soon, but I will be unable to play until 4/9 at the earliest. If my turn comes up please skip me until I am available.

I must say that I favour the higher risk / higher reward strategies, so I lean towards the raze Old Serai and go for GP strategy. But i will not start playing just yet, to see if we can get some sort of consensus.

I also favor this. I frankly don't see much downside so I don't see the "higher risk" part. I guess the only slightly risky part is that we may lose the GL race. In that case, that strategy defaults to the "shore up the economy" strategy with only 1 lost setter and some extra gold. I am bad at MM so perhaps I have too simplistic of an understanding of our situation.

Bottom line: mboza, I like the way you are thinking...

Ok, I had hoped to play last night, but someone else had made plans for me :(

Will play this evening. Intend to declare in two turns after some tech trading, steal some workers, and send all the axes straight down to raze Old Serai and rebuild it 1E.

Mboza, just making sure you are not pausing on my account. Seems like we have a majority for the GP-program with Great Library. Where will you build the GL? Are we planning on replacing the settler and founding the gem city ASAP or should we hold back a little on expansion?

TDK

Sorry all, got forced to see TMNT last night, playing now.

turn 0, 415BC, move axemen, assign horses
IBT Great lighthouse built IAFAL

turn 1, 400 BC, Nidaros finishes axe, starts sword as iron is hooked up.
Trade Poly, CoL with Genghis for Monarchy, Masonry, Archery. Tell him that his head will look good on the end of a pole, now that his workers have farmed those jungles, and steal 3 workers

IBT Gandhi trieme appears next to the marble, Old Serai contains two unpromoted archers, and 5 more workers

turn 2: move our new workers north, start chopping near Haithabu.
IBT our woodsman warrior fights of Mongol chariot
turn 3 370 BC new workers start road

turn 5 whip library, drop tax rate to bring lit forward a turn

turn 6, 340 discover Lit, start GL in Haithabu, Indian galley spotted off Uppsala

turn 7 two swordsman deposited outside Uppsala, upgrade warrior to axe, raze Old Serai for two axes.

IBT they raze a gold mine

turn 8 295 BC 8 workers on quarry, one short. Kill a sword with the new axe

IBT lose axe to other sword

turn 9 kill other sword

turn 10, Nidaros finishes sword

So, still at war with Genghis, no movement past Old Serai yet. Marble is connected, haithabu is 156/525 to GL, with 190 coming next turn. Researching MC

Turn 139, 415 BC: The Great Lighthouse has been built in a far away land!

Turn 140, 400 BC: You have discovered Monarchy!
Turn 140, 400 BC: You have discovered Archery!
Turn 140, 400 BC: You have discovered Masonry!
Turn 140, 400 BC: You have declared war on Genghis Khan!

Turn 141, 385 BC: Genghis Khan's Chariot (4.40) vs One Short Straw's Warrior (4.20)
Turn 141, 385 BC: Combat Odds: 65.2%
Turn 141, 385 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 141, 385 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 141, 385 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 141, 385 BC: (Feature: +50%)
Turn 141, 385 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: Genghis Khan's Chariot is hit for 19 (81/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: Genghis Khan's Chariot is hit for 19 (62/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: Genghis Khan's Chariot is hit for 19 (43/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: Genghis Khan's Chariot is hit for 19 (24/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior is hit for 20 (20/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: Genghis Khan's Chariot is hit for 19 (5/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: Genghis Khan's Chariot is hit for 19 (0/100HP)
Turn 141, 385 BC: One Short Straw's Warrior has defeated Genghis Khan's Chariot!

Turn 144, 340 BC: You have discovered Literature!
Turn 144, 340 BC: You have constructed a Library in Haithabu. Work has now begun on a Barracks.

Turn 146, 310 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Uppsala!
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman (5.50) vs Genghis Khan's Archer (6.00)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Combat Odds: 26.8%
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Fortify: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (City Defense: +50%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Hills: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Combat: -25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 19 (81/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 19 (62/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (20/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (0/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer has defeated One Short Straw's Axeman!
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman (5.50) vs Genghis Khan's Archer (6.00)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Combat Odds: 26.8%
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Fortify: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (City Defense: +50%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Hills: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Combat: -25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 19 (81/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 19 (62/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 19 (43/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 19 (24/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (20/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 19 (5/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 20 (0/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer has defeated One Short Straw's Axeman!
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman (5.50) vs Genghis Khan's Archer (3.72)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Combat Odds: 92.9%
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Fortify: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (City Defense: +50%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Hills: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Combat: -25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 21 (41/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 18 (82/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 21 (20/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 18 (64/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 21 (0/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman has defeated Genghis Khan's Archer!
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Spearman (4.40) vs Genghis Khan's Archer (0.37)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Fortify: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (City Defense: +50%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (Hills: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: (River Attack: +25%)
Turn 146, 310 BC: Genghis Khan's Archer is hit for 21 (0/100HP)
Turn 146, 310 BC: One Short Straw's Spearman has defeated Genghis Khan's Archer!
Turn 146, 310 BC: You have captured a Worker
Turn 146, 310 BC: You have captured a Worker
Turn 146, 310 BC: You have captured a Worker
Turn 146, 310 BC: You have captured Old Sarai!!!
Turn 146, 310 BC: You have destroyed the city of Old Sarai!!!
Turn 146, 310 BC: Birka has been founded.

Turn 147, 295 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Uppsala!
Turn 147, 295 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Uppsala!
Turn 147, 295 BC: Clearing a Forest has created 44 ? for Haithabu.
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman (5.50) vs Gandhi's Swordsman (5.21)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Combat Odds: 65.7%
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Combat: -50%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 20 (80/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 20 (60/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 20 (40/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 19 (81/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 19 (62/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 19 (43/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 20 (20/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 19 (24/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 20 (0/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman has defeated Gandhi's Swordsman!
Turn 147, 295 BC: Your Axeman has destroyed a Swordsman!
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman (6.60) vs One Short Straw's Axeman (2.22)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Combat Odds: 99.9%
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: (Combat: +50%)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 18 (82/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 21 (3/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 18 (64/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 18 (46/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 18 (28/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: One Short Straw's Axeman is hit for 21 (0/100HP)
Turn 147, 295 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman has defeated One Short Straw's Axeman!
Turn 147, 295 BC: While defending, your Axeman was destroyed by a Indian Swordsman!

Turn 148, 280 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Uppsala!
Turn 148, 280 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Uppsala!
Turn 148, 280 BC: One Short Straw's Swordsman (6.60) vs Gandhi's Swordsman (2.26)
Turn 148, 280 BC: Combat Odds: 99.8%
Turn 148, 280 BC: (Extra Combat: -10%)
Turn 148, 280 BC: (Extra Combat: +10%)
Turn 148, 280 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 148, 280 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 22 (6/100HP)
Turn 148, 280 BC: Gandhi's Swordsman is hit for 22 (0/100HP)
Turn 148, 280 BC: One Short Straw's Swordsman has defeated Gandhi's Swordsman!
Turn 148, 280 BC: Your Swordsman has destroyed a Swordsman!
Turn 148, 280 BC: Clearing a Forest has created 44 ? for Haithabu.

Turn 149, 265 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Uppsala!
Turn 149, 265 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Nidaros!
Turn 149, 265 BC: Clearing a Forest has created 44 ? for Haithabu.
Turn 149, 265 BC: Clearing a Forest has created 44 ? for Haithabu.

I would build the gem city soon, but Gandhi's raid will derail that.

Have we switched to 10 turns now? Unless I missed a post, I think you have 10 turns left to play if you want them, mboza.

Have we switched to 10 turns now? Unless I missed a post, I think you have 10 turns left to play if you want them, mboza.

I thought we were going to play one round of 20 then do rounds of 10, but I realise that never got confirmed. I think the current point is a good time to pause anyway, discuss how much effort we need to put into defending Uppsala and the gold mines from Indian raids, how far we can expand, and whether we build the gem city, pick off the barb cities or just crush the vikings next.

The GL will complete in the next 3 turns. One forest is partially chopped, then I think one more needs chopped from scratch by the other 3 workers, or we just work the iron mine and whip the last.

Currently we have enough units to defend the new city from anything the Mongols might throw at us, but we need reinforcements to continue taking cities. The new builds are concentrating around Uppsala, to defend the gold mines, but all we really need is an axeman or two. An axe is between Nidaros and Birka, so could go to Uppsala for defense, or join the attack on the mongols.

Genghis has built on the iron to the east, so we should probably take that city at least. The other mongol cities are defended by walls, so we either need cats, or we should make peace for a while.

The economy is suffering from unit costs, should we get rid of our new workers, or found more cities?

The GL will complet