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The Game
You are Temujin, Leader of the Mongolian Hordes. You have tired of fighting the Barbarians, and so this time you have decided to join them instead. You will win a glorious victory in this Monarch game, of course, but you are teamed with the Barbarians, and you have to adapt to Barbarian assets and liabilities:


You have no starting techs.
The barbs are your friends, and are fighting on your team.
You will benefit from the Barbarian capability to explore the world in animal and human form.
You can research, but you will also learn techs that the Barbarians learn.
.... And you start off at war with everyone on the planet except the Barbarians. You can make peace with anyone.


The Objective
This Monarch difficulty game is on a Standard size, Gyathaar-special map, at Epic speed, against 7 rivals. All victory conditions are enabled, and the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the teams who achieve the earliest victory date in the game.

Versions
This game will be played in Civilization IV version 1.74, using special HoF Mod 1.74.SGOTM5.

Schedule
Start files for each team 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 July 25.

I propose that you aim to complete this game in three months, that is by the end of October 2007.

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

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm5_start_small.jpg (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/sgotm5_start_large.jpg)

Map Parameters
Playable Leader/Civ - Temujin of Mongolia
Rivals - 7: China, Japan, India, Arabia, Spain, Persia and Greece
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Special, sort of a fractal archipelago
Environment - Temperate climate, medium sea level
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - Normal
Barbarians - Raging, and teamed with the Mongols
Permanent Alliances - Not Enabled
City Razing - Enabled

Notes

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

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. The number of awards will depend on the number of teams.

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

All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

Please enjoy the game :)

Gypsy King Conquistador 63 is reporting for duty!
Welcome aboard hellwitch, Thrallia & Lehm! I hope we'll have a lot of fun along our veterans Ronnie1, da_Vinci, Scout214 & g_storrow while wreaking havoc on those enemy cities, as uncivilized barbarians are supposed to! :lol:

R1 checking in! Ditto what he said.

Checking in...I almost got myself disqualified already! I started to click on the geezers thread....this will take some getting used to!

As an aside...for the last two SGOTMs, I was the starting player for the Geezers, but considering I have no idea what to really expect from the beginning of this game, and since I don't think I'll have time to play on Wednesday, I'd prefer not to go first this time ;)

i'm here too.:)

hello to everyone.

hello everybody. Lehm is checking in and ready for discussions...

Welcome all! Let's get this (discussion) party started!

First of all, is everyone clear about the new patches, which automatially install with BtS, and the need for a dual install to play this and finish SGOTM 04? I put a post in our 04 thread, and here is a link to the details:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232115

Now, about the new game.

Fastest victory of any type. Does anyone doubt that conquest is the way to go? Or maybe domination? In the XOTM, one of these two is almost always fastest, right? In SGOTM 03, for example, every diplo was faster than any space, IIRC. So it pays to chose the right victory condition.

What are the pros and cons of barb allies?

Cons:

1. No starting techs

2. Starting war with all will yield early diplo negmods ... harder to trade even after peace. Nice that we just had an always war WOTM to get a sense of this.

3. Did I forget any?

Pros:

1. No attacks on us by barbs!

2. Barbs are the "small library" ... we get any tech that most (anyone sure how many?) civs know, as that is how the barbs get them. Makes beelining tech more feasible, as the barbs can backfill the old ones.

3. Worldwide recon! We will see most of the map very fast ... which means we will have relations with all civs very rapidly! Automatic scouting!

4. A source of troops, but not under out control.

So ... how do we optimize these advantages?

1. Diplomatic plan ... we will know all civs when the first animals spawn. Well before the other civs know each other. Maybe we make peace with those who are tolerant, stay at war with those who are annoyed at +1 or so. Beeline Alphabet to trade with any we can get cautious or better with, go kill the others first (if they are close). Maintaining wars with those we can't trade with anyway may be good to avoid diplo negmods having to redeclare?

2. Religion plan ... maybe we ignore religion.

3. Military plan ... emphasize horse, as their mobility may allow them to get to areas where Barbs are operating, and work in conjunction with them.

Do we want to own cities, or do we want barbs to own them? I think if close to us, we want it, if far from us, barbs owning might be an alternative to razing if barbs are attacking as well.

Note that if barb cities spawn near us, we can't capture them, so we might need to fogbust key resources that we want so that barb cities don't spawn there.

Will we want to have some barb breeding grounds ... areas of the map that are not fogbusted so that the barb armies can spawn there?

And if a barb city spawns near a distant civ ... maybe we make peace with them so that they don't capture the barb city? If a near civ, we could reinforce the barb city if necessary. Or if we want the city, let the enemy take it and we take it back!

This should be fascinating stuff!

dV

Did anyone else play around with the test map I made a while back.

I was able to make peace after some time with a few of the "nicer" leaders. Tech trading did not ever happen IIRC. I could not get them friendly enough, and I did not want to trade Astronomy when I got it.

I beelined to Optics for the Circumnav bonus on the watery map only to find out I could not get it as a "Barb".

I agree with dV that Conquest will probably be the fastest route, but I would love to hear some arguments "For" the other victory conditions if someone wants to present them.

I was able to make peace after some time with a few of the "nicer" leaders. Tech trading did not ever happen IIRC. I could not get them friendly enough, and I did not want to trade Astronomy when I got it. I have noticed that different leaders have different thresholds for cautious, annoyed, etc. Anyone have a list of this (C63 always seems to be able to find such stuff :goodjob: )?

@ R1: Did the other AI war with each other? Or did Mutual Struggle make them too friendly with each other? If two AI go to war, we could join one to get MMS points and later do trading with that one.

Did you get a sense in your game of whether we fogbust the barbs, as we are on their team. If only other teams fogbust the barbs, is that good or bad for us?

Can we gift troops to the barbs? Might be a way for us to lessen expenses ... esp if we need to defend barb cites ... gift the archers Lbows to the barbs!

If the barbs can capture and hold territory, then maybe dom will be faster than conquest on a water map? If a small number of land masses will make the dom land limit, just taking those might be the fastest route to a win.

dV

Checking in...I almost got myself disqualified already! I started to click on the geezers thread....this will take some getting used to! I think you will have to change the line under you avatar to someting other than "Youngest Geezer"! :lol:

How about "Gypsy Knave"? :lol: ;)

dV

I have noticed that different leaders have different thresholds for cautious, annoyed, etc. Anyone have a list of this (C63 always seems to be able to find such stuff :goodjob: )?

Fortunately, we already know our rivals, from the starting screenshot. This allows us to plan ahead a little, if we think getting peace with the AI's is something we want.
. All leaders will trade tech (within limits) if we get cautious or above - but as you all might already know, Toku needs to be pleased with us.
. Izzy & Toku start at -1 with us in normal games (of course in this one we have to add modifiers for being at war). They are known to be grumpy, so those are pretty much lost causes when it comes to trading.
. Alex can be put in the same bag as above. He and Sal start at 0, but IMHO he is the fiercest warmonger of the pack and a worthless trader in general.
. Asoka, Cyrus and Qin start at +1. When it comes to tech trading, Asoka, Cyrus & Sal have higher WFTYABTA limits (10 techs). Maybe we can consider (temporary:mischief:) peace with these guys in the long term.

In any case, I wouldn't bother getting peace soon, or at least as long as our barb friends can keep spawning in our enemies' islands. Considering fair distribution of land and resources (not necessarily true), the AIs with early UUs might have better chances against the raging barbs. Not sure if there is any strategic implication of this, though. :crazyeye:

If anyone is willing to supply a test map with the new patch/mod, I'd be glad to try it.

Another suggestion, for those with the spare time (and patience ;) ), is to read the thread on a similar SG pointed out in the sign-up or pre-game discussion thread. I haven't been there, but I'm willing to go when I find the time.

I think you will have to change the line under you avatar to someting other than "Youngest Geezer"! :lol:

How about "Gypsy Knave"? :lol: ;)

dV

That's a possibility, but I think I prefer Gypsy Squire or Gypsy Knight to that, if we are discussing rank ;)

Welcome all! Let's get this (discussion) party started!

First of all, is everyone clear about the new patches, which automatially install with BtS, and the need for a dual install to play this and finish SGOTM 04? I put a post in our 04 thread, and here is a link to the details:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=232115

No need for me ;) I'm not on your SGOTM4 team...that's actually another reason why I shouldn't go first, if we are going to actually start on Wednesday(which isn't necessarily a given, since the start is very important and we have limited time to prepare for it), because I'm not going to install BtS until after I finish WOTM11.

Fastest victory of any type. Does anyone doubt that conquest is the way to go? Or maybe domination? In the XOTM, one of these two is almost always fastest, right? In SGOTM 03, for example, every diplo was faster than any space, IIRC. So it pays to chose the right victory condition.

Whether conquest is the way to go will depend on the extent to which the map is modified. I fully expect that Astro will be required unless we get lucky and our barbs destroy anyone that would have required it...otherwise there's a lot less selection than it would seem.

If Astro is required, then Diplo might be almost as fast as Conquest and/or Domination would be...since the UN is only 3-4 techs removed from Astro, and since all but Radio are easily lightbulbed by Scientists.

What are the pros and cons of barb allies?

Cons:

1. No starting techs

2. Starting war with all will yield early diplo negmods ... harder to trade even after peace. Nice that we just had an always war WOTM to get a sense of this.

3. Did I forget any?

Pros:

1. No attacks on us by barbs!

2. Barbs are the "small library" ... we get any tech that most (anyone sure how many?) civs know, as that is how the barbs get them. Makes beelining tech more feasible, as the barbs can backfill the old ones.

3. Worldwide recon! We will see most of the map very fast ... which means we will have relations with all civs very rapidly! Automatic scouting!

4. A source of troops, but not under out control.

Con:

3. No source of easy cities by attacking the barbs ;)

Question: Do barbs require metal for axes/swords? If not, do we require metal still?

So ... how do we optimize these advantages?

1. Diplomatic plan ... we will know all civs when the first animals spawn. Well before the other civs know each other. Maybe we make peace with those who are tolerant, stay at war with those who are annoyed at +1 or so. Beeline Alphabet to trade with any we can get cautious or better with, go kill the others first (if they are close). Maintaining wars with those we can't trade with anyway may be good to avoid diplo negmods having to redeclare?

We know them already, and I'd say Izzy, Toku, and Alex are lost causes already. Asoka, Qin, and Cyrus we should be able to peace fairly easily though, and Saladin tends to be a wildcard.

2. Religion plan ... maybe we ignore religion.

Perhaps...religion would be a good card to pull out of our sleeves down the road, should we decide to attempt a diplo victory, but rather than founding one, I think it'd be best to try to get the most predominant religion into at least 1 of our cities, then use it if needed down the road as a state religion.

3. Military plan ... emphasize horse, as their mobility may allow them to get to areas where Barbs are operating, and work in conjunction with them.

I'd suggest we not bother scouting more than 7-8 tiles from Karakorum at first, and that only to look for new city sites. The more fog, the more barbs will spawn...and since we know everyone, and will quickly know where everyone is, thanks to the barbs, there's no reason to waste all that fog :evil:

Additionally, since the barbs will share any tech we research with us, I'd recommend we push hard for military techs early, in order to get the barbs upgraded as fast as possible, while they are still a major, relevant force in the world. For this, I'd recommend we attempt to get Maces as early as possible, definitely pre-1AD.

Do we want to own cities, or do we want barbs to own them? I think if close to us, we want it, if far from us, barbs owning might be an alternative to razing if barbs are attacking as well.

Note that if barb cities spawn near us, we can't capture them, so we might need to fogbust key resources that we want so that barb cities don't spawn there.

Will we want to have some barb breeding grounds ... areas of the map that are not fogbusted so that the barb armies can spawn there?

And if a barb city spawns near a distant civ ... maybe we make peace with them so that they don't capture the barb city? If a near civ, we could reinforce the barb city if necessary. Or if we want the city, let the enemy take it and we take it back!

This should be fascinating stuff!

dV

I think we want to own close cities, and let the barbs control the distant ones...do barb population points count toward a domination/diplo victory for us? How about their 'cultural' boundaries?

We definitely want some foggy areas around our enemies...perhaps by razing cities when we begin any overseas invasions.

Note that this isn't Warlords, which means we can't take any vassals...because of that, conquest will be a more difficult victory condition than we're generally used to it being.

Fortunately, we already know our rivals, from the starting screenshot. This allows us to plan ahead a little, if we think getting peace with the AI's is something we want.
. All leaders will trade tech (within limits) if we get cautious or above - but as you all might already know, Toku needs to be pleased with us.
. Izzy & Toku start at -1 with us in normal games (of course in this one we have to add modifiers for being at war). They are known to be grumpy, so those are pretty much lost causes when it comes to trading.
. Alex can be put in the same bag as above. He and Sal start at 0, but IMHO he is the fiercest warmonger of the pack and a worthless trader in general.
. Asoka, Cyrus and Qin start at +1. When it comes to tech trading, Asoka, Cyrus & Sal have higher WFTYABTA limits (10 techs). Maybe we can consider (temporary:mischief:) peace with these guys in the long term.

We had the same analysis for our opponents...I hadn't looked at your post yet when I responded to dV.

Izzy and Toku will be at -4 with us...that means death for them :devil:

Alex is impossible to deal with, so he's gone also.

I agree that Asoka, Cyrus, and Qin pose the best chance of being helpful for us on this game, they'll be at -2 with us, and will still tech trade with us at that happiness level...and if we decide not to go Conquest, it will be much easier to overcome that -3 war declaration for their votes than it would be with anyone else.

I have no idea how to deal with Saladin...he has multiple personalities, I swear...sometimes he's impossible to deal with, other times he's the best person to have around.

In any case, I wouldn't bother getting peace soon, or at least as long as our barb friends can keep spawning in our enemies' islands. Considering fair distribution of land and resources (not necessarily true), the AIs with early UUs might have better chances against the raging barbs. Not sure if there is any strategic implication of this, though. :crazyeye:

If anyone is willing to supply a test map with the new patch/mod, I'd be glad to try it.

Another suggestion, for those with the spare time (and patience ;) ), is to read the thread on a similar SG pointed out in the sign-up or pre-game discussion thread. I haven't been there, but I'm willing to go when I find the time.

I wouldn't bother with peace for awhile either, as with raging barbs on Monarch they should be able to do a decent amount of damage to our enemies...perhaps even take one of them out for us!

As far as the AI UU's are concerned...only Alex has a UU early enough that it might help him...and if we can get the barbs upgraded to axes fast enough, then his UU will only quicken his downfall :)

I can't do a new map with the mod until I finish WOTM11, but once I do, I could set up a basic game, pick the AIs, but I don't know enough about worldbuilder to be able to set up our initial position from the screenshot.

As for the similar SG...it was a Civ3 SG, and because of that, I haven't gone there...I'm not sure it would hold much bearing for a Civ4 game because of the innate differences in the combat systems.

I'll see if I can get to a new test map after I get my dual install completed. That won't be or a day or two, so if someone can get to it first feel free.

@ Thrallia, Do you really think we have a shot at a Diplo win? Are you thinking more of a back door fight our way to enough votes? Or, do you think we can do it through more peaceful means?

If we truly need to tech to Astro anyway(as I believe we will...modified by Gyathaar Fractal Archi on medium sea level), why not see if Diplo would be feasible?

Using religion/civics bonuses and keeping Asoka/Cyrus/Qin alive, it shouldn't be hard to win a diplo via peaceful means...after all, we've got two pretty good diplo players in here ;)

In order to build the UN, we need Astro>Sci Meth>Physics>Electricity>Radio>Mass Media...all of which can be lightbulbed with GS except for Radio(lightbulbable with a GA)...thanks to the random tech bonuses of the barbs, we won't really have need to get backfill techs, so starting out with the early military techs(up through Maces) then converting to a Mass Media beeline shouldn't take too long.

I'd contend that if we can plan out our Great People well enough, we could have the required Great People to lightbulb each of those techs, research Mass Media, rush the UN, and hold some votes faster than we could research Astro, build/upgrade enough galleons, and then conquer an unknown number of overseas empires.

If barbarian population is included with ours for the purposes of Diplo wins, then a backdoor would be possible, especially since we could leave any long-distance cities in the hands of the barbs-preventing them from dropping our science rate.

Also, dV, how's WOTM11 going? I really wouldn't mind scrapping it entirely and moving on to the next XOTMs...I'm picking up BtS tomorrow before I go to work.

WOTM 11 was a fun one for me! I played the challenger start and was successful with my strategy, I doubt I'm anywhere near a medal though.

We get science points for all techs that the AI's know each turn. I had trouble with my science rate in my practice game, and was still first to Astronomy. With better MM towards science, I'm sure we could get there even quicker. My concern is more in getting enough AI's to +12 or whatever we need to get a yea vote! The Diplomacy aspect of the game is not one that I would consider to be my strong suit. So I'm willing to learn.

We only need a total of +8 for each AI, including hidden modifiers.

Luckily, they have no modifiers whatsoever toward barbs, AFAIK, so our alliance with them matters not in terms of diplomacy other than to give us an initial -3 with each civ.

Luckily, since Asoka, Cyrus, and Qin all start out at +1(hidden), they'll really only be at -2 after the war declaration. Going from -2 to +8 shouldn't be too hard, considering we can get +4 for trades, +2-8 for religion, +2-5 for Civics, +1-3 for mutual wars, +1 for open borders, and +1-3 for sharing resources.

it isn't likely we'd get all of those, but we trading is almost a given, as is OB, sharing resources(usually), and civics can be done easily as long as they don't have mutually exclusive fav. civics. As far as religion...preferably we can make those 3 the same religion as each other, then adopt that religion...otherwise, we don't HAVE to have it.

Well, it sounds really interesting to me trying a diplo win. If we can get a nice spot for a great people farm we´ll get those scientists and the artist very quick. BUT actually I have never seen a diplo win to be the fastest condition in one of the XOTM. One could get astronomy really fast by beelining to it. By analyzing games of "Doc TK" I learned that one can skip a lot of techs and get galleons about 600AD to 800AD. So still a lot of time to conquer everybody else before the first diplo wins are to be expected.

So I vote for conquest though it should be easier than a normal conquest because we don´t have to care about the barbs. Diplo win as second option if something unexpected happens.

Maceman pre 1 AD is absolutely necesary ( and nice ) for a conquest.

Furthermore I agree with Thrallia to let the scout just move some squares to discover nice spots for next cities and let him wait close to Karakorum to fogbust.

First tech(s) to discover: I would go for animal husbandry to work those juicy pigs.

Oh, or does anyone want to move the settler? I would move the scout 1W then 1SW. If we don´t find anything special settle in place and build a worker first.

IMO the best sttrategy will be BW. Here are the reasons for that:
- HBR is expensive tech and lead to nothing(BW=mining,chopping and slavery)
- The Keshik is exensive unit with very cheep counter(spearmen)
- The exemple OCC game show that the only real chance for the barb to destroy some of our rival is fast barb axes.
- As we got BW the barb will get it too
- Later in the game we will get HBR for free and then we can use the keshiks for their best purpose - pillage.
- On arhipelago maps like this the movement bonus of the keshiks will be less efective
- As we start with aggressive leader our axes will start with combat I promotion
- From my experience and lots of other games posted on here the axe rush is sure thing on monarch while the use of HA(keshiks)
has very suspicious result.

And here are my other points:
- we will need to make peace not for the trade but for the WW. Because all dead barbs will cost WW for us.(WW will be big problem)
- This game is monarch on epic speed the trade will play very little role somewhere near Astronomy.
- Military tech must go first and leave the other to take them free from the barbs.
- as the game go in AD the barb will get less role because there will be no free space on enemy islands for barb spawn. I hope at least they will keep some islands clear for AIs.
- We must go for early conquest to be competitive(even without Asro if possible).
- Most of our cities must be production powerhorses and preferable on coast(arhipelago map)
- After BW we must beline for cats(as they must be our main unit: 1 of every 2 units is good ratio). if we don't have enemy by land sailing must go first.
- As this is arhipelago map if we control the seas we will control the whole game so this could be good strategy.
- We can try to prevent the AI to meet each other if it is possible.

I thing that we must give more attention to the global strategy in our discussion. From what i've read in SGOTM 4 thread the micromanagement is widely discused while the whole strategy is taken too fast. Maybe i'm wrong if you have discuss it by PM.
This is only my personal feeling.
Please fill free to criticize my opinion as this is the way to make good decisions.

I totally agree with the war fare techs. Axes and cats. If we are lucky we will have war elephants (but I don´t think so) and then maces.

But the barbs won´t get axes before a certain time even if we already have bronzeworking. So still enough time to tech for animal husbandry. Not for the keshiks ( I don´t like them neither) but for the production of our cities.



Is the grammar right? Is it "I don´t like them neither or either"

If there isn't Agricultural food resource in the capital's fat cross - AH first will not worth. Without any production(if build on place) we will need chopping and slavary ASAP. IMO the scout must go SW SW to see the west side of our possible fat cross.

The only think I noticed that hasnt been discussed is that Mutual military struggle we coudl do with getting peace asap with the people we want to be peace with. but the 3 who we want will surely be at least freindly with the others who will only hate us more and the 3 who we cant get peace with will surely pact up to hate us. I think we try and get peace with everyoen asap apart from the closest person or teh person who we want to attack first.
but then eth warrios cant pillage/attack others who we dont want to attack straight away but will in the end run.
Can we give cities to the babariians?

Sorry for the rambling and the spelling. I think I am jsut concerned regarding mutual struggle poitns accumulating on our enemies so they get matey and kil us.

I must agree with hellwitch is point where a lot of the discussion was for MM and that turn /next turn. I think when we post what we are planning to do in our turn we also mention what long term strat is and how our turn helps this? if it doesn't it is fine occasionally but we shoudl keep an eye in the future.

Also, dV, how's WOTM11 going? I really wouldn't mind scrapping it entirely and moving on to the next XOTMs...I'm picking up BtS tomorrow before I go to work. I finished it this weekend ... let's just say I am satisfied with the result. You'll want to finish it if you don't want to lose ground in our little contest. ;)

dV

@ R1, dV, Thrallia: I've finished WOTM11 yesterday, and I enjoyed playing it too.

Now I'm really pleased with the level of discussion going on, especially from new teammates, I think we've done a good job on recruiting. :)

In my solo games I usually go on the builder side and would love to try a diplo approach as suggested by Thrallia, but this being a team game I agree 100% with Lehm and hellwitch, conquest is the way to go here.

I also agree we shouldn't be in a hurry to start the game. We need to discuss strategy further and if possible some playtesting would help.

About tech remember we start with no techs (in a normal game we'd have hunting/wheel). So I'd be inclined to go AH via hunting (if this gives spearmen to the barbs) or agriculture (if it doesn't), mainly for the pigs, not the keshiks. But mining+bw is also to be considered. I like the axe rush idea, but I doubt there is another AI in our landmass (archipelago). The discussion is still open.

Scout should go W-NW or NW-NW if we want him to show fat cross for starting settler position.

What got me confused from hellwitch post is whether he thinks we should pursue early peace or not. I think early on WW is irrelevant, and we need to harrass the rivals, but I might be wrong.

How soon into the game will the first animals spawn? When that happens, I think suddenly the map will be revealed, and a lot of our questions will be answered. Which of the various decisions can be postponed until we get this intelligence? Maybe we play the first turnset until animals, then pause for some well informed discussion?

I've used back door diplo as away to end a crawling domination game that has gotten bogged down ... but that tends to be a late win.

Do we really think that any kind of diplo is going to beat those 1000 AD conquests that we know some individuals in this contest are capable of? If the civs that are hostile by nature are near enough at the start, then maybe the early part of the game is the same for either conquest, dom or diplo ... kill the hostile civs?

dV

Just checking in. Played on a previous Gypsy Kings :king: team but not the most recent one. I'm sure that I am one of the lesser experienced team members, since I don't play Civ 4 that much like some of its true aficionados. Will do my best to hold up my end, though, and abide by the consensus on strategy. :crazyeye:

To Ronnie, daVinci & Conquistador - nice to be playing with you guys again! Let's do better than Bronze this time!! :lol:

I totally agree with the war fare techs. Axes and cats. If we are lucky we will have war elephants (but I don´t think so) and then maces.

But the barbs won´t get axes before a certain time even if we already have bronzeworking. So still enough time to tech for animal husbandry. Not for the keshiks ( I don´t like them neither) but for the production of our cities.


Is that true? I would assume that if the barb team KNOWS bronze working, then it can USE axes.

I think the reason it takes so long for the barbs normally to have them is that it has to wait until everyone else already has the tech, in order for it to get enough beakers to learn it.

The only think I noticed that hasnt been discussed is that Mutual military struggle we coudl do with getting peace asap with the people we want to be peace with. but the 3 who we want will surely be at least freindly with the others who will only hate us more and the 3 who we cant get peace with will surely pact up to hate us. I think we try and get peace with everyoen asap apart from the closest person or teh person who we want to attack first.
but then eth warrios cant pillage/attack others who we dont want to attack straight away but will in the end run.
Can we give cities to the babariians?

Sorry for the rambling and the spelling. I think I am jsut concerned regarding mutual struggle poitns accumulating on our enemies so they get matey and kil us.

I must agree with hellwitch is point where a lot of the discussion was for MM and that turn /next turn. I think when we post what we are planning to do in our turn we also mention what long term strat is and how our turn helps this? if it doesn't it is fine occasionally but we shoudl keep an eye in the future.

No one else will know each other yet, so no mutual war points. Additionally, if we are planning on a conquest(and on leveraging our barbarian allies as much as possible), then it doesn't matter what they think about us anyway.

How soon into the game will the first animals spawn? When that happens, I think suddenly the map will be revealed, and a lot of our questions will be answered. Which of the various decisions can be postponed until we get this intelligence? Maybe we play the first turnset until animals, then pause for some well informed discussion?

Do we really think that any kind of diplo is going to beat those 1000 AD conquests that we know some individuals in this contest are capable of? If the civs that are hostile by nature are near enough at the start, then maybe the early part of the game is the same for either conquest, dom or diplo ... kill the hostile civs?

dV

I think animals spawn on turn 7 or turn 8. Not sure if that is modified by RAGING barbs(just noticed this...we can almost definitely take out at least 1 civ early with raging barbs, especially with no Great Wall available).

As far as diplo/domination/conquest...the early game will be the same in any of those cases...we want pre-1AD Maces so that the barbs get pre-1AD maces...raging barb maces could be very dangerous for our enemies.

I think for our research, we head to BW, then CoL(by which point we should have most of the techs we normally have to backfill learned thanks to passive barb teching)...basically, despite not starting with any techs, we should be able to beeline to a CS Slingshot if we ignore worker techs(which we'd learn automatically in around 30-45 turns) since CS doesn't require Math in vanilla ;)

By doing that, then either teching directly to Machinery, or going the opposite direction, and using Oracle for Metal Casting, get a GE and lightbulb Machinery and teching CS we should(theoretically) be able to get early enough Maces that the AI won't be able to handle it :)

@dV, Ronnie1, C63: My WOTM11 hasn't gone quite as well as I'd have expected, so I think I'll lose ground to you this month dV :)

Is that true? I would assume that if the barb team KNOWS bronze working, then it can USE axes.

I think the reason it takes so long for the barbs normally to have them is that it has to wait until everyone else already has the tech, in order for it to get enough beakers to learn it.


Well, I don´t know. I just thought that the barb team has several points in time when they get the tech for new units. But okay, if they really can use the axes by the moment they get bronze it´s best to go mining then bronze first. ... pigs have to wait.

@hellwitch: If you try to let the scout move SW SW it´s going to be a hard fight against this unpassable mountain. ;) NW NW is okay to see everything of the starting spot fat cross. Agree to do that

I think we definitely need to get a test game set up and we all play at least 50-100 turns of it before we do something stupid to open up this game lol

I should finish up WOTM11 soon, so once I do I'll install BtS and try to get a test map set up and posted in here.
Among the things we need to check are the following:

Whether barbs can use the techs we research when we research them(axes/Maces)
Whether barb pop and land counts towards our domination/diplo limits
How fast we get techs from barb passive research
How well the AI copes with human-tech infused raging barbs
Whether a CS/MC slingshot is possible with no starting techs


Did I miss anything?

The test game I posted in the sign-up thread (or discussion thread, can't remember) has the right opponents and the correct starting position. It does NOT use the current Mod of course, but that should not make much of a difference in how it plays. I have played with it a couple times to get a feel for how it will go. My first impression is that teching is very slow, somehow being teamed with the barbs, appeared to slow the tech I was working on, even as I was gaining points on techs that I had no interest in at the moment. I was going for the early Astronomy route, and got there first, but was lagging in some of the other basic military techs. Basically, I was missing the top half of the tech tree when I got to Astronomy.

Also, I'm still trying to find a copy of BTS, and haven't had a chance to download the new patches, so I'm still at least a day or two from being able to work on a test game. But I agree with Thrallia that we should all play a number of turns of testing for our own benefit. And as someone else said, we don't have to start just because we have the save file. Careful planning at the beginning can shave lots of turns at the end.

As far as the roster goes. The last 2 games I set the roster by random order. I put the names of the old guys in 1 hat and the names of the new guys in a different hat, and alternated drawing names to try and balance it out. I think I would like to do something similar this time also. My only issue right now is that I'm going to be out of town for a convention for 5 days starting on the 28th of July. I will be out of touch until at least the 1st and probably the 2nd of August. I'm not sure what kind of internet access I'll have at my disposal. If anyone has any thoughts on the roster idea, please let me know.

I'd be happy to hold off on starting the game until R1 gets back, gives us time to get our computers up and running with the new patches (I know they are giving Lehm fits!). Or as an alternative, if we have a clear plan for the first 10 turns, we could play those, see what the animals reveal, then pause to plan in more detail.

While I agree with hellwitch that the long range strategy must be considered at all times, I also think that it can be useful to speed decison-making to understand which decisions have to be made now, and which can actually be made later when there is more information to base it on. So if we focus on what needs to be decided for the first 10 turns (where to settle, first build or two, first tech or two), we can get to the animal spawn and then pause to think out the grander strategy, with more info and less speculation.

One idea that we used in SGOTM 03 was to move the settler, then upload to discuss where to settle, after having more info. If we want our cities to be coastal, as hellwitch suggests, then settling in place looks reasonable. Going south looks like jungle, too hard to develop early before IW.

2W 1N of settler looks like water, so settling 2W might be an option, but what would justify the one turn delay?

Settling SE adds sea tiles and mountain to FC, but does bring a second hill into play (after IW) and city tile is now dry grass instead of wet grass (adds a commerce). Or maybe it is a first hill into play, as pig hill won't be mined (or will it?). In place gives a good cottage city, SE adds only a few extra hammers. Maybe a later city is production city?

Any other one turn settle is not coastal, so perhaps less desireable? So if the only settle options are in place, 1SE or 2W, then the scout move is 1W, 1NW.

So if we agree on a leadoff hitter, agree that 1W 1 NW is the scout move, then we could make that move and upload, then discuss where to settle. Then maybe we get to the animal spawn before R1 leaves, then pause until he gets back (while we play some test games etc.)

I'm not sure if we want to delay worker techs too much ... do we want to wait 40 turns to build cottages, roads, or pasture the pigs? Mining the pig hill (we can pasture over it later) might be an intersting idea ... would allow us to wait on AH if the consensus is to go that way. But if we have a civ that we can reach by land, that we want to kill, we might want to be able to reinforce the raging barbs so might want horse for that. We will know more after the animals start to roam.

dV

I have some troubles with 1.74 patch. I know from what they are and i hope to fix the problem soon.

And for the start i think that settling in place will give us very poor in production terms capital. If we go that way BW first is a must (chopping and slavery). But as this is arhipelago and the good city point will be only few i vote for 1 turn delay of the capital. if the settler go on the pigs hill we can see lots of the south coast and can get better options(a sea food will be very desirable i think - that will make fishing top priority). For the scout i think 2NW could open view to the west coast which will happen if 2w 1n is a sea tile.

As for the similar SG...it was a Civ3 SG, and because of that, I haven't gone there...I'm not sure it would hold much bearing for a Civ4 game because of the innate differences in the combat systems.
The thread is about a Civ4 game, its main difference is that is an OCC and prince level. Even then, I'll have a look at it to search for answers to some of your questions.
So if we agree on a leadoff hitter, agree that 1W 1 NW is the scout move, then we could make that move and upload, then discuss where to settle. Then maybe we get to the animal spawn before R1 leaves, then pause until he gets back (while we play some test games etc.)
We can't upload a save after moving only the scout (it is still 4000BC), but we surely can post a screenshot for a more informed discussion. And the scout move would be 2NW as hellwitch says. If his patch problems are sorted out I propose he starts the game and reports after moving the scout.

The thread is about a Civ4 game, its main difference is that is an OCC and prince level. Even then, I'll have a look at it to search for answers to some of your questions.
We can't upload a save after moving only the scout (it is still 4000BC), but we surely can post a screenshot for a more informed discussion. And the scout move would be 2NW as hellwitch says. If his patch problems are sorted out I propose he starts the game and reports after moving the scout. That would be fine with me. To keep order, I think we won't execute that until we get the OK from R1 ... as we should keep the roster decisions in our capable captain's hands. "It is best to have one ruler, one King ..." :lol:

If we move a small distance and settle, will we have wasted a good city spot? In particular, if we lose the pigs in the FC, no other city will get it unless we have moved pretty far away. If our island has only a few city spots, maybe we need to take this one now? Just something to consider. We will know more after the initial moves.

If we move the settler to explore, is going up the pig hill better than going NW to the forest? I guess he can see the sea tile past the coast, looking for seafood. But the scout is seeing two tiles out to sea, so maybe NW for settler sees more new tiles? Then scout can start W, to confirm if the south is all jungle (which we would not settle to start, right?). Maybe finish with a second west scout move.

@ hellwitch: If not settling in place, do you have other thoughts in mind? Like settle NW if that finds seafood? I assume not settling on the pigs. South looks like too much jungle. I am pretty sure 2W 1N is coast, as the terminal river delta is in its SE corner, right? So as much as in place is hammer poor, maybe no better options?

If there is seafood 3E 1N of settler, that might make settling 1E useful ... how best to see that? Scout 1N or Setter 1 E? Or will settler see that from the pig hill? If we don't want to go inland, and want to keep the pigs, then options are rather limited. R1, who could see what from where in your test game right at the start?

dV

sorry, but i still have problems with 1.74 .:mad: I prefer not to be first because of that.

I read somewhere that Lehm is done with upgrading, maybe he would take the honors, if R1 agrees. :)

Here is the worldbuilder save of the practice game I made earlier. I think it should load with any mod if I undestand things correctly, but my knowledge may be the only thing lacking.:lol:

@R1: I suspect you forgot to attach the WB save.
@all: link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=166443) to another barbarian SG, where we could learn something about barbarian behaviour (besides not using the right forks/knives while eating fish :lol: )

I read somewhere that Lehm is done with upgrading, maybe he would take the honors, if R1 agrees. :) That works for me too. Are we agreed that first item is move the scout, then upload a screenshot? Might even move scout one tile, post screenshot, to decide whether to finish scout move or move settler next.

So is it Scout west, or scout northwest for the first move?

Eventually, after the discussions, we have to vote! ;)

I might be done upgrading by the end of tonight, so if Lehm isn't ready to kick off, I might be in position to do it by tomorrow (if the install goes well).

dV

Maybe this is the way to proceed:

Scout moves either W, NW or NW, NW. This tells us whether we want to settle 2W of settler or not. If nothing attracts us to settle 2W, then decision is to settle NW, E, SE, or in place. Depends on what is North regarding seafood and what is 3E 1N of settler. How to see all of that?

We can test who sees what in the test game. If settler on pig hill reveals the tile 3E, that might be the move. But if there is no other seafood, if we then prefer SE to in place, then pig hill move means we don't found until third turn.

We should test out which moves see the critical tiles in the test game before we start.

dV

I would like to play a test game but I can´t find the link to an already posted test game. Will Thrallia make a new one soon? Or can anybody tell me where I can find the link.

By the way, next week I won´t have too much time because I am going to write some exams where I have to learn for. (The whole week!) So I guess I shouldn´t be the first to play. But I will check the discussion every day to stay up to date.

Let's try again. I was in a hurry this morning and didn't notice that the WB save was rejected as an invalid file type. So the best I can do is the 4000BC save file. If you've done a dual install, this file should work with the last 1.61 mod.

hm...maybe I should be the first to play after all lol

I finished installing BtS earlier tonight...its amazing how fast it runs! I was able to turn on antialiasing and ramp the graphics up to High, and it ran about twice as fast as it used to for me on medium with no antialiasing.

I wonder if 1.74 and 2.13 added in the tweaks they made to make it run smoother or not...anyway, I'll check out Vanilla in the morning and see if I get that error...if not, I'll try to make and post a save that is set up for the custom mod we need for this game.

still online R1?? In Washington it should be 2 in the morning... That´s what I call self-abandonment for the team... lol

The Roster order is still a very fluid situation in my mind. I can't play now anyway, because I haven't even begun to start my dual install. I've been very busy lately, but it will get better after I return next week. Right now, I'm kind of waiting for a consensus on how we intend to start our opening moves, and find out who has the ability to play the first set.

I favor moving the scout NW-NW to the forest, and depending on what we see, I figure we've got a couple options.
1. If we pick up resources close, settle in place.
2. If we don't get anything close, move settler to pig hill for good look so we make a well informed decision on turn 2.

@ Lehm,
I am in Washington State (Pacific Coast Time 12:00). But I'm about done for the day. Did you get your update and starting save file to open? Are you interested in leading off?

@ Thrallia,
What part of the world do you reside in? How did your ugrade go? Have you been able to view the starting save file yet?

@ ALL,
Has anyone done a successful dual install? I sure wish Gandhi wasn't such a moron, I/we wouldn't need to worry about dual installs.

I've set up the old folders, and those files load and load mods correctly.

Tonight I'll install BtS, and see if the old files still work, then try the normal HOF mods for the new patch versions, and finally try the 05 mod.

Might make sense for Thrallia to lead off ... after we are sure of the first scout move. Might move one tile, select settler to see blue circles, post a screen, discusss, move next tile, select settler, post a screen, discuss, etc. until we get first city founded.

Everyone should play around with first move options. If we are happy founding on the third turn, here is one result in the test game.

Is 2W better than 1 SW (from settler start point)?

dV

@ Lehm,
I am in Washington State (Pacific Coast Time 12:00). But I'm about done for the day. Did you get your update and starting save file to open? Are you interested in leading off?


Everything is updated and working fine. I downloaded the file and could open it.

I have some questions :
1.First what this mean - first move options? Is this some HOF mode stuff?

Everyone should play around with first move options.
dV
2. While some other teamate is on turn can i load as many turn as he is playing or i must only load his uploaded file?
3. When it is my turn to play - Can i load few times or i must play the whole session in one load?
4. What kind of info and from where to get it when i must post after my turn(i know for the battle log but what else?)

One other thing - i managed to run 1.74 at last:mischief:

1. step: move scout NW NW - then post a screenshot for new discussion.

In the test game IMO it would have been best to settle 1SE of the starting spot to get the second hill into the fat cross and to have a harbour city.

Other things I learned from the test game:

barb spawning: - turn 7: animals - 2
turn 8: animals - 8
turn 9: animals - 10
turn 10: animals -9
from this time the maximum number of barb animals stayed at 10 until first warriors appeared in turn 42

turn 42: warrior - 2
archer - 1
animals - 7
turn 43: warrior - 4
archer - 3
animals - 5
turn 44: warrior - 5
archer - 3
animals - 3

I teched mining ( 3550BC) first then bronze (2680BC). I got archery in 2950BC . SO this is what the barbs are teching to first.

First axeman appeared in the same turn when I got bronze ( turn 46 )
but 2nd and 3rd axeman appeared 19 turns later ( in turn 65)

Then I made the mistake to make peace with almost everyone but Tokugawa and Alex what caused the barbs staying out of the territory of the civs I had peace with. So I recommend to stay at war with everybody as long as warweariness makes it possible.

In turn 60 first barb city was founded. barb cites aren´t so good because the barbs almost always have a lot of units (3) there which could be more helpful in enemy territory but of course we can´t do anyhing to prevent barb cities from spawning.

The techs I got from the barbs where the following:
1. archery
2. agriculture
3. animal husbandry (685BC)
I also got Mystic, Hunting and Sailing but I don´t remember when exactly

I by myself teched

1. mining
2. bronze
3. Wheel
4. fishing
5. pottery
6. ironworking

That was a mistake. I think we should directly tech towards ironworking to give the swordman to the barbs. They were really good in the game and even conquered a city.

The disadvantage of this tech path is that we don´t get our cities upgraded because the workers won´t have anything to do until we get agriculture from the barbs. Good thing is that our second city probably will have a lot of jungle we could chop.

Other things fom the game
Stonehenge 1690 BC
Oracle 955BC
Pyramids in 640BC

Oh, and we don´t get a bonus from the tribal villages when moving on them. But we get the bonus when our borders expand.

I have some questions :
1.First what this mean - first move options? Is this some HOF mode stuff?

2. While some other teamate is on turn can i load as many turn as he is playing or i must only load his uploaded file?
3. When it is my turn to play - Can i load few times or i must play the whole session in one load?
4. What kind of info and from where to get it when i must post after my turn(i know for the battle log but what else?)

One other thing - i managed to run 1.74 at last:mischief:

1st question: That just means everyone should think about the first steps to make in the game. What options do we have? Where is the best spot to settle and how long should we delay the building of our capital.

2nd question: Only one player is really playing the game as I understood right. This player will post screenshots and we all will discuss about what to do next. After a couple of turns the player will upload the game save file and the next player will download it to be next to play.

3rd question: You could play in one load but if there are decisions to make you should stop then post a screenshot and we will discuss the problem. Reloading and playing one turn or more again is not allowed of course.

4th question: I don´t understand the question... sorry..:confused:

My 2¢ on hellwitch's questions:

2. While some other teamate is on turn can i load as many turn as he is playing or i must only load his uploaded file? I believe anyone can open the current save to look at the cities, maps, diplo screens, etc. You just aren't allowed to move any troops, make any deals, or any other irreversible move.
3. When it is my turn to play - Can i load few times or i must play the whole session in one load? Lehm got it right
4. What kind of info and from where to get it when i must post after my turn(i know for the battle log but what else?)A good idea is go to options/hof mod, choose a name for the autolog (sgotm5.txt ?) and set autolog to "forum tags". After you finish your turn, it helps to copy/paste the block of text relative to that turnset and insert it as a spoiler in your "I'm done" post

One other thing - i managed to run 1.74 at last:mischief: I downloaded the files but haven't been brave enough to try it. :crazyeye:

I read the SG thread I referred to earlier, and I found good info there, but the same can be achieved playing testgames as Lehm just did (I haven't done).

So I propose Lehm takes the lead, moves scout 2NW and post screenie for discussion.

I would be fine with Lehm in the lead, as he has a test game under his belt.

I think we might want to tighten up our thoughts on where to put our first city.

If we don't find any seafood, or any other resource or hill in our initial search, where would we settle?

Using my screenshot from above as reference, is 1 SE (from settler start) better than in place because of the jungle hill, as Lehm suggests? I think it might be, because if no second hill, we either waste the pigs on mining the hill, or have pitiful production in the capital forever.

If that is true, what would we need to find in the fat cross of settling in place to make us do that? Seafood? Or perhaps a hill in the west, or some other land resource (cows, for example).

What would it take to make us settle 2W of initial settler start? In my screenshot, the seafood on the west coast and the pigs could be in the fat cross of 2W. But then we have to use the hill as a mine to get hammers, so finding seafood to go with the pig hill does not seem that useful to me. I think the pig hill is better used as a pasture (food, health) to support a mine on another hill ... so 1 SE still looks good.

Now if we agree that seafood + pighill is not all that useful, then finding seafood is not so critical ... and the move of the settler to the pig hill may not matter. Which means we can keep the settler in position to settle 1 SE on turn two as a fall back position. And which would mean that knowing what is 3E 1N of settler start is not that important either.

In the short run, seafood + pighill may be useful running nets and mine on pigs. Then later pasture the pigs. If we think that makes sense, then we do search the seafood, and probably need to move settler to pighill for a look. Or settler 1E, (seafood 3 E?) then scout to pighill on turn 2, then settler can either settlle in place or SE (of start) on turn 2.

Otherwise, we are settling on turn 3 if we climb the hill, or turn 4 if we climb the hill and then decide to settle 2W of start.

I do think we should upload a screenshot after scout moves 1 NW and before he finishes move, in case we want to finish due W or even SW after what we see.

dV

I got archery in 2950BC . SO this is what the barbs are teching to first. This is not necessarilly true. The "Barbs"/Us, get "Free" Beakers each turn for all the techs that the AI's know.
EXAMPLE:If Archery is only ~100 beakers and all AI's(7) know it, in 15 turns we get it for free (7x15=105).

@ Hellwitch, The main rule is just as C63 said, ONLY the current player can make ANY moves. All other players are free to LOOK at the save file all they want, just no playing!:nono: AS C63 said, Playing is defined as doing ANYTHING that is PERMANENT (not reversible).

@ All of the new guys. I'm looking for keyboard shortcuts for your names. The ones I use currently are
Ronnie1=R1
da_Vinci=dV
Conquistador 63=C63
Scout214=S214 or 214
g_storrow=g_s or gs
Thrallia=?
Hellwitch=?
Lehm=?

I am leaning towards Lehm playing the first turnset.

I have some questions :
1.First what this mean - first move options? Is this some HOF mode stuff? Sorry to be confusing. Lehm has it right, I just meant use the test game to see how different scout and settler moves see into various tiles, and how that affects how long it takes to settle certain locations. Can we see what we want to see and still settle on turn 2?

2. While some other teamate is on turn can i load as many turn as he is playing or i must only load his uploaded file? Very important NOT to play along with the person whose turn it is to play. When the save is posted, you can look at that save, you can do anything to that save that you can undo (such as change citizen tile assignments in a city, change the research, look at what someone will offer in trade [but don't execute the trade], look at the cost of changing civics [but don't start the revolution]). In other words, you can do things that you can undo to return the position to the most recent save uploaded.

What you can't do is anything that is a permanent change. No unit moves. No revolutions. No execution of trade deals. No whipping or drafting.

Unless you are the active player, you should not have a save, or have created a position whether you save it or not, that is irreversilbly more advanced than the last uploaded save.

3. When it is my turn to play - Can i load few times or i must play the whole session in one load? Ideally you would play one session. Generally sessions will be 10 turns, plus or minus a few if there is some logical stopping point that is not at exacty 10 turns. Sometimes at the start we play 20 for a while, but with the barb allies maybe 10 is best at the start too for this one.

If a crisis come up at turn 5, it is fine for your to upload, we discuss, and you play on for the rest of your 5 turns. I suppose that if you had to take a break at turn 5 and resume the next day that would be fine as well, but I would try not to have more than one break between save uploads. Hopefully, it won't be too hard to play all 10 turns in one session.

4. What kind of info and from where to get it when i must post after my turn(i know for the battle log but what else?) When you upload, the system will give you a "receipt" page giving the details of your submission. Cut and paste that into a document, as it will include what it calls your "session log" which I think is a copy of the log that Civ generates in the upper left corner. That is what I call the upload log in my reports.

The HOF mod also has an autolog feature. This saves to a folder called autolog. You can customize more or less detail in this one. If you select forum tags, it displays with a color code in the forum. That is what I call autolog in my reports.

I usually give a short narrative of the key events, where I think we are going from here, and any immenent threats. Then I post the autolog and the upload log. I keep a minimum of handwritten notes.

dV

@ Thrallia,
What part of the world do you reside in? How did your ugrade go? Have you been able to view the starting save file yet?

@ ALL,
Has anyone done a successful dual install? I sure wish Gandhi wasn't such a moron, I/we wouldn't need to worry about dual installs.

I live in Oklahoma, and yes, I have weird hours I'm on here lol

I didn't dual install, no need since I have no more open 1.61 games left, but installing through BtS was painless, and I was able to easily open the save file.

This is not necessarilly true. The "Barbs"/Us, get "Free" Beakers each turn for all the techs that the AI's know.
EXAMPLE:If Archery is only ~100 beakers and all AI's(7) know it, in 15 turns we get it for free (7x15=105).

@ All of the new guys. I'm looking for keyboard shortcuts for your names. The ones I use currently are
Ronnie1=R1
da_Vinci=dV
Conquistador 63=C63
Scout214=S214 or 214
g_storrow=g_s or gs
Thrallia=?
Hellwitch=?
Lehm=?

I am leaning towards Lehm playing the first turnset.

I don't really have a shortcut I'm aware of with this game...my other online nick, Vulcanis, has a shortcut(vulc), but the only one I'm aware of for thrallia is thrall...not much of a shortcut :p
Feel free to figure one out on your own :lol:

I'm about to set up a test game and post it in here, it'll require the correct mod, so we can play past the discovery of alphabet.

Hopefully, it won't be too hard to play all 10 turns in one session.

Maybe but i am married:lol: :king:

I've look at the save 1W 2N seems sea, 2w 2n too so all the land we have is maybe 1,2 tile in the West and in south direction to the jungle. I've made a test game too. M,BW,IW seems the best way. We get for free - archery,hunting wheel and all cheep thech very early. But about the peace/war - from what i saw away war is not good either - the AI archer get garnison promotion vs warrior and the axes can't be very effective. I think that few cases of cease fire can make bigger groups of barb troops which could do better job. One ather thought on my arhipelago start test - the chance for land enemy is quite low - arount 10-15%. And one thing for the poor production on the start location - if there is second food(maybe sea food) in the fat cross the wimp could make our first hammers + chop ofcource. The fresh water must be taken as argument too . On arhipelago the resources are fewer.

Ronnie1 you can call me HW or hell. In case you didn't know i am man to mater on the nick name

here's the test game...you'll need to change the file type back to .Civ4WorldBuilderSave

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/74689/Temujin.Civ4SavedGame

You'll enter it via the custom scenarios screen rather than loading a game.

Unfortunately, as I'm not good at WB, the land we'd explore with our scout is already revealed...but it still helps us determine the best scouting moves.

I don't really have a shortcut I'm aware of with this game...my other online nick, Vulcanis, has a shortcut(vulc), but the only one I'm aware of for thrallia is thrall...not much of a shortcut :p
Feel free to figure one out on your own :lol: You ought not to give up control of that naming ... we might decide to call you "lia", in which case your title could be "Gypsy Princess" :lol:

Seriously, I think Th works as well as any for you.

Maybe but i am married:lol: :king: Sounds like you play as slowly as I do! ;)

Ronnie1 you can call me HW or hell. I would suggest "hw", for three reasons:

1. Why make me work for the shift key? :lol:

2. There are no upper case letters in hellwitch. If it were HellWitch, I'd say use HW

3. We won't call you "hell" ... unless you goof up something! :lol:

dV

I have been trying to boil our starting options down to a few basic concepts that are somewhat independent of the map, but I don't seem to be getting responses to that ... so here goes again:

Do we agree that the capital will include the pig hill in the FC? Unless of course, we find some bonanza of resources in the fog that might move us.

If so, then the three sites in the attached screen are the reasonable choices, right (others mean we give up a forest to chop)? If there is seafood 3W 1N of settler start, then settling on the eastern forest might be considered.

I think we should be able to think through, at this time, whether we prefer seafood + pighill city to pighill + jungle hill city.

In seafood + pighill, do we mine or pasture the pigs? In the long run, pasture I think, but maybe mine in the short run?

Or are we better off settling 1SE of start on turn 2 if no clearly better option emerges ... after IW we mine (addition: jungle) hill, and we eventually pasture the pigs.

It comes down to whether we prefer hammers or food at the start. So what do folks think?

Early hammers or early food?

dV

? is that the actual save?

Going from that screenshot, I'd prefer city #3..it has more food, more hammers, and more commerce(all long term) than city #1 and #2 do

actually, from your other questions, it appears that you WB'd a map to illustrate your questions to us.

The capital has to have the pigs...pigs on a hill is one of the best resources we could have for this start.

I would vote for seafood+pig hill...we mine the pighill and work the seafood, giving us higher commerce and production than we would have otherwise, thus allowing us to research a little bit faster than we would have otherwise.

I think we mine the hill as soon as we have a worker, not waiting till IW

as for whether we prefer early hammers or food in general...my answer to that will depend on how close our enemies are to us. If we can rush a neighbor, then hammers, by all means, but if we are isolated, or not close at all to a neighbor, then we should emphasize food...either way, we still research Mining>BW first, and we still want to settle seafood+pigs if possible, since that will give us both early food and early hammers.

Wouldn't it be better if we could discuss settling options after the scout has moved? Haven't we agreed on the scout move? Suppose there is no fish to NW, all this discussion would be void.

? is that the actual save? NOT THE ACTUAL SAVE, it is R1's test map. Sorry, didn't think that confusion would arise, but I can see now how it might!

Since I am not at the game, it is the screenshot I posted earlier, re-screenshot into paint and marked up.

I meant mine the jungle hill after IW, but was not clear. Problem with pighill + jungle hill is that mining pigs early means no food bonus.

dV

Wouldn't it be better if we could discuss settling options after the scout has moved? Haven't we agreed on the scout move? Suppose there is no fish to NW, all this discussion would be void. My thought is that if we were to decide that we prefered the combination of pighill and jungle hill to seafood and pighill, then the search for seafood is less critical, and we might avoid moves like settler to pighill which might delay settlement for 1 turn.

My view is that the more you can narrow the settling options a priori, the more well defined the exploring you need to do to chose among them, and the more precise the exploring moves at the start can be.

If the scout does not see fish, what does the settler do? If we think that seafood +pighill is the best, then he looks for seafood, I think. If we think that pighill + jungle hill is best, then maybe he just goes SE and founds on turn 1.

We can decide in theory which we prefer before we even start, which is one less thing to have to decide after the scout moves. So I am just trying to get a little head start on the decision process.

All that having been said, yes, it also can wait until after the scout moves ;)

And when has mootness ever stopped me from talking! :lol:

dV

And when has mootness ever stopped me from talking! Never of course!! The place we MAY not be able to see after the scout moves is the area N by NW of the hill. If we don't like what the scout sees after he moves, we move the settler to the hilltop. If we take a look from the hilltop and see seafood, then we consider settling NW of the pig hill. If no seafood we can move back S.

But I agree with C63's point.

The roster order is

Lehm - UP NOW
Conquistador 63 - on deck
hellwitch - in the hole
da_Vinci - waiting
Thrallia - waiting
g_storrow - waiting
Scout 214 - waiting
Ronnie1 - waiting
If there are install problems this first go round, please let me know. This will be the "Lineup" for the rest of the game. When your turn comes up, You have 24 hrs to post a "got it" message and an additional 48 hrs in which to play the turnset. We are going to start with ~10 turn sets this first round. If we are close to discovering a tech maybe you play 1-2 extra turns.

I think Lehm should make the scout moves NW-NW and SAVE GAME and post a screenshot before we decide to move the settler.

lol so I get to clean up any messes dV makes? ;)

lol so I get to clean up any messes dV makes? ;) Far from it! I have to set you up so that even a child could not mess it up! ;) :mischief:

dV

I made the NW NW move. How do I post the screenshot? Sorry , but I´ve never done that before...

I think Lehm should make the scout moves NW-NW and SAVE GAME and post a screenshot before we decide to move the settler. Any support for making the one NW move and posting a shot of that? Maybe only if the move 1NW reveals something we need to think about. Value is that it allows us to reconsider second scout move.

In any event, select the settler (without moving him) before taking the screenshot, as that let's us see the blue circles, which might influence where we look for resources.

dV

I made the NW NW move. How do I post the screenshot? Sorry , but I´ve never done that before... OK, first, if you didnt' select the settler, why not do that before we make this screenshot ( I always thought that the German "machen ein Photo" made more sense then the literal translation of the English to German of "nehmen ein Photo" ;) ), so we can see the blue circles.

There may be an in-game screenshot function, but a generic way for all programs is this:

With the screen displayed that you want to capture, use the print screen function on your computer. It is usually using shift or function key plus the key labelled Pr sc or prt sc or similar. Looks like nothing happened, right? But the screen image is now copied to your clipboard.

Miminize Civ 4 if you can. Otherwise you may have to close it. Then open paint.

Go to edit menu, click paste ... the screenshot should paste into paint. Now go to file, save as, pick JPEG file type (XP wants to default to bitmap, which is a huge file and won't upload), name it SGOTM 05 m1 scout or sometning, maybe make a folder in my pictures called SGOTM 05.

Hope to see the shot soon! :goodjob:

Hmm ... that is how you make/take it ... to upload it, I use the manage attachments function in the reply window, if that is what you were asking. See the button for it below the reply text box.

dV

I hope you will read my question dV now that you´re online at the moment

I hope you will read my question dV now that you´re online at the moment Ich bin sein diener! ;)

That's about the best I can muster from my old days of high school German! :lol: ) Question already answered.

dV

I know how to make a screenshot or "Foto machen" (:lol: ) but I don´t know how I can upload the screenshot or what ever. When I click on the "insert image" - button it says: " please enter the URL of your image.

What does that mean? It starts with http:\...

but ????

Ich bin sein Diener - I am his servant

I guess you wanted to say: "I am your servant" right?

That would be: "Ich bin dein Diener" oder "Ich bin ihr Diener" ;)

Does it work?

Mh, why does it look so ugly?

hopefully it is better now...

Ich bin sein Diener - I am his servant

I guess you wanted to say: "I am your servant" right?

That would be: "Ich bin dein Diener" oder "Ich bin ihr Diener" ;) As you can see, my German is as rusty as a nail in the dirt. "Dein Diener" is your singular, and "ihr diener" is your plural (English is ambigous about this), IIRC ... and ihr diener is also your singular in the polite form? (Or maybe not ... the fog of age :lol: ) Addendum: And Photo instead of Foto ... it has been too long! :blush:

We appear to have either a low resolution or a low color level picture.

Make another one from the game and save it as a bitmap ... now big is the file? My JPEGs are 100 to 200 KB IIRC?

Then try other formats ... look at the manage attachments window to see the accepted formats. It will take gif, jpeg, jpg, jpe. Maybe one of those will look better.

I think that mine go up as extension jpg, even though I call it a jpeg. I might have missled you with that.

dV

Phew, hard work...

@R1 - There are not so many options for a shorter form of my nickname. It could be Le or Lh or Lm. Please feel free to chose one for me.

Now to the image: Settling in place would mean we will have a really low-productive city ( as expected ).

options we have now:
1. Settling 1S would give us the jungle hill while we still have the pigs and the banana (plus two tiles we can´t see at the moment). But we won´t have access to the ocean.

2. Settle 1SE to get the jungle hill but lose the banana

..or we could wait to check the surrounding what would cost us 2 rounds more until we can settle.

I have to say that I tend to settle 1S. We get all the ressources but lose the coast. So second city has to be a coastal one...

Well, 5 years ago it was Photo... now it is Foto because some people in Germany think we have to upgrade our language. And you´re right... "Ihr" is both the polite 3rd person singular and the 2nd person plural

If we were looking for seafood, and would have settled in place for seafood + pighill, why wouldn't we settle in place for banana + pighill? We can farm the banana for 4F after agric and before calendar, and mine the pighill.

So question is do we trade being a coastal city to get the jungle hill in the capital? The jungle hill could be worked by a second city later, and we can't work it until IW anyway. If not coastal, no lighthouse, so the coast then stunts growth.

We also need to consider crowding issues ... do we want to try to get a second city on this island? I assume we want a city to have land and coast tiles, and as few sea tiles as possible. In place is the coastal location with the most land in the FC ... is that useful?

I assume we don't want to settle on the pighill, or 1NW or 1E, as that is too much sea, and loses a forest. Well, maybe 1NW if there is seafood in the sea (we get the coast anyway if we settle in place), as that is seafood + banana + pighill.

I would not settle 1E even if there is seafood in the east fog, as that loses the banana, the forest, and adds sea tiles. So no need to explore east.

Only reason now to move the settler to the pighill is if we think we might settle 1N or 1 NW. I think 1N is out (pighill), 1NW might work if there is seafood north.

Other thought, is settle 2W if there is seafood west.

We could:

1. Settle in place now.

2. Settle 1S now.

3. Move settler to pighill if we are willing to settle 1NW if we find seafood.

4. Move settler 1SW and wait. then move scout W, then NE to forest.
From 1SW we can settle the in place, the 2W, the 1S on turn two, or 1NW forest on turn 3 (all relative to settler start).

Banana + seafood + pighill coastal looks like the ultimate city ... is that better than pighill + banana + junglehill, non coastal? If yes, then don't settle 1S just yet. If we prefer both hills in capital, then we can settle 1S now.

Time to debate! :D

Does the lack of blue circles 2W and 1NW suggest that there is no seafood north or west? If so, maybe our only decision is between 1 and 2.

dV

@R1 - There are not so many options for a shorter form of my nickname. It could be Le or Lh or Lm. Please feel free to chose one for me. Lm makes most sense to me, as to pronounce "Lm" comes out pretty close to pronouncing "Lehm", doesn't it?

dV

From what i see i think we must settle in place - this food can be turn in hammers when needed but the 2nd must be a production city. Not coastal capitol is not desirable as we will cut lots of oportunities - the harbour, the ligthhouse(we will still have 4 sea tiles) ,the colusus and so on. So 1S would not be a good city on arhipelago map. In other case 1S is good city side.

I agree with hw, settle in place. We can mine (or pasture it later) the pighill and farm banana and research mining/BW for slavery hammers. There is also chance of getting seafood in fat cross (2N & N/NW). Trust the blue circle :)

How about 1st build? I tried worker 1st in the test save yesterday only to find out he would be idle most of the early game. Does settler first make sense?

p.s. my dual install is ok - but I did have problems patching Warlords to 2.13 due to stupid local distributor of the game inserting some bad cd-checking routine. I had an issue before when going to 2.08 and had to resort to unofficial .exe file. :mad: :mad: :mad: Well, at least it's not an issue for this game. :sad:

Few thoughts:
1st Settler is intresting idea as we will be protected by the barbs and we dont need warrior for the first settler. The bad thing is that we really need worker in time for BW. By my calc. 1 worker need 23 t. while BW will need around 37-39(it depends if the barb reseach same thech as us). So in not very strict calc. - after the worker is out it will have 16-14 turn with only 1 aviliable hill for mining.This mean aroung 7-9 idle worker turns. 1Settler means 38 turn - on BW we will need another 23 to get the first worker. The early 2nd town also mean earlier research slow.
Well IMO we need IW before second town because of the jungle.
All my calc. are based on settling in place without any other resources in the FC.

If I understand this right, the barbs get beakers each turn toward each tech that any AI knows, (perhaps one beaker per AI that knows it, or some similar formula?) So maybe the barbs are researching several techs at once? If so, perhaps the way to keep the early worker busy is to first get mining, then check to see if the barb research has made other first column techs very close, like agri or wheel. If only a short detour, we could quickly pick up agri, then farm the bananas, maybe even the river plains (one more hammer) if the worker is otherwise idle. Or if wheel is close, we could pre-road our current and future city.

Also, how reliable are the blue circles? Is it worth moving 1SW and waiting for the second scout move, in case seafood is out there? But since we don't start with fishing, we can't work the water tiles or build the workboat right away anyway, so maybe the seafood is less help than ususal at the start? It still might be the best play long term, if it is there (if the blue circle is wrong).

dV

My test map was pretty close.

I agree with settle in place! I think worker 1st is the best bet.

In a hurry, will have more later.

If there was seafood in the north wouldn´t we see another blue circle?

I built the settler first in my test game but I don´t think it was a good decision because the second city had to be placed in a total jungle surrounding. To settle the second city just slowed down my research.

I suggest to build a warrior first to let the city grow on the one hand and to let the warrior fogbust so that the barbs don´t appear on our island where we don´t need them.

As as I understood right most of us are for settling in place right now. Is that correct?

If there was seafood in the north wouldn´t we see another blue circle?

I built the settler first in my test game but I don´t think it was a good decision because the second city had to be placed in a total jungle surrounding. To settle the second city just slowed down my research.

I suggest to build a warrior first to let the city grow on the one hand and to let the warrior fogbust so that the barbs don´t appear on our island where we don´t need them.

As as I understood right most of us are for settling in place right now. Is that correct? I prefer settle in place to 1S as I think we want to be coastal.

I agree that if we trust the blue circles, then settle in place. But will we kick ourselves if seafood shows up in the west, or in the sea north (coast north we already have if settle in place)?

Is there an upper limit on the number of barbs at one time? Maybe it is a proportion of the world population? If so, fogbusting our island makes sense, but if the islands are small, maybe our scout could do that? If he is not enough, then maybe a warrior makes sense.

We are in no hurry, so let's think this through more before we proceed.

dV

PS: Somebody else has my avatar! Look in the GOTM 21 pregame ... never thought I would see the day! I may be changing mine because of that ... I have found a great photo of a model of da Vinci's tank! :goodjob:

dV

From my (boring) test game and from reading that other thread, I believe that barbs get free beakers for tech known by a given % (at least half?) the AIs. For instance, even buddhism was founded by someone else we got no beakers towards meditation for a long while. Also I don't think that they research before they have a city themselves. But yes, archery is the fastest "auto-tech" from the start. Maybe because in Monarch all AIs start with it?

Also IIRC, I read that barbs can spawn in our field of vision so fogbusting wouldn't matter. We could build start building a warrior for MP later on (or barracks) if we want pop growth. Or better yet, insert a cheap worker tech (agri or wheel?) before BW to keep worker busy. I tend to the latter.

I just want to say that baracks is better vs warrior because we will not need the warrior as there is no near threat. And with agressive leader the barracks are with 50% cheeper. Ofcorce we could stop the barrack to make perfect timing for the worker.

agreed to the barracks. I totally forgot that option.

Now I remember a barb archer spawned in my territory in my test game. I just wasn´t sure if I didn´t see him the rounds before but anyway ... so fogbusting doesn´t make sense.

So where are we now?
- Settling in place
- Set tech path to bronze
- first build: barracks to let city grow to size 2 - then worker ( or even finish the barracks... let´s see)

PS: Somebody else has my avatar! Look in the GOTM 21 pregame ... never thought I would see the day! I may be changing mine because of that ... I have found a great photo of a model of da Vinci's tank! :goodjob:

dV

I already read it in an other post. But hey, I think I like your new logo more... good choice :goodjob:

agreed to the barracks. I totally forgot that option.

Now I remember a barb archer spawned in my territory in my test game. I just wasn´t sure if I didn´t see him the rounds before but anyway ... so fogbusting doesn´t make sense.

So where are we now?
- Settling in place
- Set tech path to bronze
- first build: barracks to let city grow to size 2 - then worker ( or even finish the barracks... let´s see) We are planning to mine the pighill, at least to begin with, right? So why don't we want the worker first, then the barracks? Is it to get the early pop growth first? If mining will be done before the worker if we start the worker first, how is getting the mine up ASAP not the best way to go?

If we make the worker first he may have some idle turns ( but if we detour to agri or wheel, maybe not so much), but if we make the barracks first, we also have no worker for as many turns as it takes to make the barracks, which in a sense is more idle worker turns, isn't it?

dV

I would still prefer worker 1st then insert cheap worker tech before bronze. But if settling in place reveals sea resource 2N, this could also change.

I would still prefer worker 1st then insert cheap worker tech before bronze. But if settling in place reveals sea resource 2N, this could also change. That is my line of thinking too. A turn with a worker idle is the same as a turn with a worker not built, so I guess I don't quite see why building him later solves the idle worker issue.

If we build the worker after we get to pop 2, does having the extra pop earlier make that much difference? Especially if that delays mining the pighill?

As always, I could be wrong, and could be persuaded by a good argument. C63 and R1 have been persuading me for years! (well, months then) :lol:

dV

I prefer worker first for the same reasons, basically we need to work improved tiles as soon as possible. If we need another worker tech to avoid to much idle time, I think we try to grab Ag or Wheel, and then Bronze.

Few thoughts:
1st Settler is intresting idea as we will be protected by the barbs and we dont need warrior for the first settler. The bad thing is that we really need worker in time for BW. By my calc. 1 worker need 23 t. while BW will need around 37-39(it depends if the barb reseach same thech as us). So in not very strict calc. - after the worker is out it will have 16-14 turn with only 1 aviliable hill for mining.This mean aroung 7-9 idle worker turns. 1Settler means 38 turn - on BW we will need another 23 to get the first worker. The early 2nd town also mean earlier research slow.
Well IMO we need IW before second town because of the jungle.
All my calc. are based on settling in place without any other resources in the FC.

Isn't the big reason we are beelining BW to enable axes for the barbs, rather than to give ourselves axes?

If that's the case, then I'd say building a settler first makes sense in a way...nothing but a mine for our worker to do, so getting a jump on our first settler could help us....on the other hand, I don't like the idea of keeping our capital size 1 for 60 turns.


PS: Somebody else has my avatar! Look in the GOTM 21 pregame ... never thought I would see the day! I may be changing mine because of that ... I have found a great photo of a model of da Vinci's tank! :goodjob:

dV

I like your new avatar much more than the old...I need to find a new one for myself as well...too many people running around with Augustus.

That is my line of thinking too. A turn with a worker idle is the same as a turn with a worker not built, so I guess I don't quite see why building him later solves the idle worker issue.

If we build the worker after we get to pop 2, does having the extra pop earlier make that much difference? Especially if that delays mining the pighill?

As always, I could be wrong, and could be persuaded by a good argument. C63 and R1 have been persuading me for years! (well, months then) :lol:

dV

The second pop may not make more than a couple turns difference for building the worker...but it could easily give us faster research...use the first pop on the pig hill, for building the barracks, then when we pop borders, switch to the bananas...it'll give us faster growth and better science rate(+1 beaker/turn makes a few turns difference in techs this early), then when we hit size 2, switch to a worker and work the bananas and another riverside tile(giving us +2 science to what we would be with worker first). We'll get the worker a few turns later, but we'll have a faster science rate, and we don't have anything to spend the hammers on at first anyway, other than the barracks.

IMPORTANT: Victory Conditions

Conquest victory is disabled in the Windows start files. So if you find yourselves all alone on the map, with only the barbs for company, please upload your final save in the normal way, and contact me or Gyathaar. We can then verify that you have indeed achieved a Conquest victory.

This does NOT apply to the Mac Team. Instead, they will not be able to win a Diplomatic victory. This VC is disabled, as I could find no way to mod the Mac version of Civ4 to allow the barb team to give or receive votes.

From the Maintenance thread...I guess this eliminates the debate over whether to check out a Diplo victory as the fastest victory...we'll go conquest or domination.

Been doing play testing of various options with the Temujin test game.

My personal inclination has been traditionally to build a Barracks first, then a Worker. I tested three possibilities: (1) Barracks 1st; (2) Worker 1st; (3) Barracks until Pop grew to 2, then Worker, then finish Barracks. It turned out that (1) was the least beneficial in the long run, and (2) narrowly did better than (3).

I also tested various methods of tech development. It quickly became clear that the Barbarians would bring us Archery, Hunting & Fishing without us having to research them. My focus zeroed in on the sequence (A) Mining/Bronze/Agriculture vs (B) Mining/Agriculture/Bronze. It turned out that (B) was easily superior over the long haul. The reason is the timing of when the Worker can do things. With (A) he must sit and wait for 14 turns, doing nothing, at one point. Under (B), the timing works out that he can be continuously doing something. When I compared 76 turns each way, with (B) there were more farms, roads and Pop for the the 1st city (got to 4 on Turn 76 while it still had 5 turns to go (turn 81) with (A)). Everything else got done at about the same time.

My recommendations...
(1) Build a Worker first, then Barracks. After that, 2 Archers. Then a Settler. By then, the Worker will have created Mine on the Pig site, 2 farms and should chop the 2 forests to the West of the city to speed up the Settler. 2nd city in the jungle space to the South between the clams and sugar (at least in the test game), will occur turn 69, while the Worker builds roads to connect. (Most of the enemies will get their 2nd city quicker).

(2) Don't make peace with any of the enemies. As we advance in tech, the Barbarians will get better troops with which to harass them all over the map.

(3) Do Mining, then Agriculture, then Bronze, then the Wheel, then Pottery, then Animal Husbandry, then Iron Working (or Metal Casting?). Bronze, Animal Husbandry and Iron Working get the Barbarians better troops. Agriculture before Bronze Working speeds up development of farms, pop, roads, cities. Alphabet will not be as important this time because the Barbarians will get us a lot of the enemy's techs.

(4) Leave the forest E of 1st city for its hammer. Build 1st farm SW of city, 2nd farm S of city, then chop the 2 forests W, NW of city. One archer in each of the 2 cities.

Did 2 beat out 3 in tech production as well?

I'd think that the +2 science at first would speed everything else up.

in my test game i get agri and the wheel for free early too. I don't think delaying BW is a good option as in my test game 2 turns after i got BW there were 4 barb axes. I even go for IW then and this shows like a good move because the barb get few swords a turn later. Meanwhile i get all 1 lvl techs + AH. So i dont think we need to research low lvl(1-2) techs.
And for the peace/war strategy - i think that with few cease fire/declare for 1-2 turn peace could make barbs very effective in groups.
And i dont think we must build archers at all - somewhere at that time we can get axes(as this manipulated map i think the copper will be near).

in my test game i get agri and the wheel for free early too. I don't think delaying BW is a good option as in my test game 2 turns after i got BW there were 4 barb axes. I even go for IW then and this shows like a good move because the barb get few swords a turn later. Meanwhile i get all 1 lvl techs + AH. So i dont think we need to research low lvl(1-2) techs.
And for the peace/war strategy - i think that with few cease fire/declare for 1-2 turn peace could make barbs very effective in groups.
And i dont think we must build archers at all - somewhere at that time we can get axes(as this manipulated map i think the copper will be near).

That´s exactly what I think. Nothing more to add. The two archers have no jobs at all as we expect to be alone on our island and hopefully have axeman as defence oppotunity (or even offence of course).

So I am for mining - bronze - iron
I still prefer the barracks first to let city grow to size 2 as mining the pigshill is everything the worker can do for a while and we will get another commerce from pop 2.

Oh , and we settle where we are now right?

OK, we have good points from each side, but as we need to decide at some point I'm good to go with hw and Lehm's point of view about tech: mining/bw. IW or AH or something can be evaluated later.
I think the majority goes with settling in place. If someone disagrees, please say so (I know Lehm proposed 1S).
And as we don't go mining/agri I'd go warrior first, it can be completed same time pop goes 2 if we work banana when border pops, then whip worker (if necessary) when BW(slavery) is done. Maybe we'll get a better location for troops production in city2, so maybe never barracks in capitol?

OK, we have good points from each side, but as we need to decide at some point I'm good to go with hw and Lehm's point of view about tech: mining/bw. IW or AH or something can be evaluated later.
I think the majority goes with settling in place. If someone disagrees, please say so (I know Lehm proposed 1S).
And as we don't go mining/agri I'd agree barracks first, whip worker when BW(slavery) is done. The questions are:

Production: Barracks first? Worker first? Even settler first?

Research: Mining>BW seems to be the consensus

Scout214 and I were on the phone each playing our own test game runs last night, after we got him patched up and good to go. He is my old high school chess buddy (too far back to say :lol: ), and while civ is not his primary love ;) he is a an avid strategy gamer across board and computer variants. He has good generic strategic and tactical instincts, and is still learing details of the game mechanics nuances of civ that one get to know hanging around here.

One early worker scenario that we might keep in mind is that worker could chop a settler right after mining the pigs, if we don't want to spend any research time on first column techs. That depends on whether the scout finds some non-jungle land to settle ... a nice coastal seafood site and we could build the workboat in the capital and send it. Might be a reason to switch to worker as soon as necessary to be done by BW.

On a pure production standpoint, one citizen working the mined pig hill is as useful as three citizens in the forests: three net hammers. But, if as Th says, there is nothing to spend hammers on that is useful, is one extra commerce somewhere better than the extra hammers? Might just be, and that argues for later worker.

If we wait to whip the worker after BW ... what do we make after barracks and before BW? We have few production choices, Th's point.

In my test run, it seemed to take forever to get things done, and 2200 came and went and still no second city.

Now in our game, we can work 3F 1C after we get FC, so things will be a little faster. Any thought of Agri>Mining>BW>IW? And worker first? Farm the banana first, and then the pop growth speeds everything else. The fastest way to IW might be pop growth and even cottages, rather than a beeline? Or if not fastest, the one that makes us stronger?

That being said, if hw is pretty certain that the beeline to IW is the way to go, I am inclined to defer to his sense of this. Lm seems to support this too, and both warnmonger better than I do.

Summary:

We settle in place now.

We start the barracks

We research mining with an eye to BW

Scout the island.

We can always modify the plan ... if the scout finds a great second city site without jungle, we might want worker out with BW to chop a fast settler.

So, do we agree to the plan in bold above? Cast you vote! I say yes!

And we are playing 10 turns then handing off the save, right?

dV

agreed, I am waiting for the "GO" order

OK, we have good points from each side, but as we need to decide at some point I'm good to go with hw and Lehm's point of view about tech: mining/bw. IW or AH or something can be evaluated later.
I think the majority goes with settling in place. If someone disagrees, please say so (I know Lehm proposed 1S).
And as we don't go mining/agri I'd go warrior first, it can be completed same time pop goes 2 if we work banana when border pops, then whip worker (if necessary) when BW(slavery) is done. Maybe we'll get a better location for troops production in city2, so maybe never barracks in capitol?

We have two votes for the post #108 plan, me and Lehm.

C63 seems to agree with settle in place, and with mining first, but suggests warrior instead of barracks ... I think if we are going to be agressive early, we need barracks in capital ... if it has to build troops between infrastructure, then they might as well be good! Or it may be a troop pump anyway! But is that a minor decision ... warrior vs barracks first?

I'd like to see if we have at least 6 members on board with the plan before we launch it ... hopefully we will get additional votes today.

dV

[QUOTE=da_Vinci;5742274]The questions are:

Summary:

We settle in place now.

We start the barracks

We research mining with an eye to BW

Scout the island.

My vote:
1. Settle in place.
2. Start Worker. Testing shows in the long haul does not adversely affect Pop growth; in fact, it is slightly better than Barracks to allow Pop growth initially. That depends on finishing Agri before the Barbarians would provide it. By Turn 76, Pop in Capital reaches 4 despite building a Worker first, and the 2nd city is in place.
3. Mining/Agri/BW. Testing reveals a SIGNIFICANT difference from Mining/BW. Worker gets to develop infrastructure instead of sitting around, doing nothing, waiting for BW. Barbarians will procure all of the level one techs over time, to be sure, but not on a timely basis.
4. Scout the island with an eye to where to place the second city as soon as possible.

I suggest that everyone play out the different test scenarios to see graphically when all of the elements of development occur in comparison with each other for all of the possible, viable options.

My vote:
1. Settle in place
2. Start barracks, switch to worker at size 2
3. Research Mining/BW(and I'd throw pottery in right after BW, before IW)
4. Scout the island

I think we'll get Agri pretty fast from the barbs anyway, since it is one of the very first techs the AIs research. The reason to go barracks first is not because of the pop growth, but because of the science growth we'll get from having an extra 2 commerce early(since hammers don't matter for workers anyway we can continue working the riverside tiles for commerce)

Say Mining is 150 beakers...if we have 8 commerce, it'll take us about 18 turns to research it...if we have those extra two commerce, it will only take us 15 turns to research it.
Bronze Working, assuming it is about 300 beakers, would take 38 turns to research at 8 commerce, and with 10 commerce it would be 30 turns.

that +2 is a 20% increase in research speeds, which I feel is definitely worth a wait of a few turns for a worker that only has a single mine to build right away anyway.

I might repeat myself but here goes:
I'm probably the worst warmonger in the team, and in a solo game I might go in a way similar to Scout214. BUT I want to learn to play different, so I prefer to go with Lehm/hw (among the best warmongers here).
At this point I'm not 100% convinced if one path is clearly better than any other. But my reasoning behind my last post is that warrior first helps pop growth, timed exactly to start worker with pop=2. We'll eventually need 1 cheap military police, but it's not 100% sure barracks will be useful this early in the game, and hammers can decay if we go as Thrallia suggests. His other suggestion (pottery) is great, cheap early granary helps with aggressive whipping.
In the end, I'm ok either way, so if there is further voting I'm abstaining. :)

I'm fine with warrior first as well, the main thing I'm pushing for is to grow to size 2 for the increased science rate before building the worker.

I've got some time today to revise the test map with the bananas and run some simulations and post results, which I will start shortly. I will post the map as soon as I have it, so that other can test with it as well. I''ll keep a turn by turn, side by side spreadsheet of the results of what appear to be our three main