SGOTM 22 - Insolita Suspicatur

[kcd_swede]

Question:
Since we settle at fish, agri is less useful, right? I would suggest med(until city3) > BW>IW. Or perhaps even better (since we do want farms in Rome) is to slow-tech Agri until city3 is founded, then we have enough cash to get BW>IW at 100% research. Better to save cash before library bult than have to make cash after it is built.

We will be unhappy at size 6 in Rome, so further growth is counterproductive until Monarchy.

Another question: With BW comes the opportunity to chop and whip... do we switch to slavery immediately (and whip monument in Wineyard? whip wb in Fish city?)? Or wait for Monarchy and double switch (thereby slowing monument and border pops).

Also, on the diplo side, do we want OB with anyone else, for example to see Persia or hope to gain religion spreading?

I can play whenever, so I'll wait for the questions to be answered and the green lights to come in.

 

[Zhary]

Yeah you'rerigth about agri. With our mpwarriors and overflow of wine its better to make mon a priority instead of having farms waiting in cap. Its probably best to have slider 0% to bank money until we can tech BW+IW without interuption ie ~60 gold.
I guess worker 1 could road the cow and start prechop forest earlier insted of build those farms.

I realized that its better to starve rome imediately when the library is done to increase the prob for a scientist even a little bit more. (Remember to not let rome shrink!)

Slavery:
I think we should produce praets with 4-2 whips in fish and vine but if we dont have any metal its not worth revolt until HR. (If we only got copper I could se an axe army but its something we could discuss once IWis finished.) Its probably safer to have 2-4 more praets to ensure our victory in the field than 1 earlier turn of HR. So yes slavery once Iw is finished.

Monument whip is not realy worth it I think and the WB is finshed faster with working a mine at size 1 than it is growing to a size 2 whip.

OB with persia to scout them absolutely. Once city 3 is found we should send 1-2 more warriors over there to scout to.

 

[Zhary]

Btw Green if that wasn't clear. Its just suggestions not any important things that i comment.

 

[Deckhand]

Hi
Back home after 8 weeks on the road (seeing a lot of America and visiting family & friends).
So, now I have access to BtS (until I move in 12 days and leave my desktop behind again). Busier now than when I was traveling, but - After kcd plays, Ben could take a turn set this week and I could do one next week. Hopefully we can go faster than one set per week.

Green

 

[haphazard1]

Looks good to me, so green here as well.

 

[Benginal]

Green from me as well. Let's do it!

 

[kcd_swede]

Sorry guys... the title says it all. No iron anywhere near. Copper is also a good bit away. Had we gone straight for HA and then catapults/elephants, we'd be earlier to war.

On the bright side, we have a good foundation for rapid teching.

More bad news, our exploring warrior (north) got killed by a barb archer.

More good news... well, there isn't any, really, just what we expected to acheive. We will need archery to make archers so we can found city 4 to get the elephants - though maybe its getting to late for quick asault? Anyhow, we need math for the chops, constr for the elepults, archery and HBR. And probably before we can do city4 we need Monarchy, or Rome wil not grow.

I suck at space race speed, so still think Conq is the way to go, and think we need astro to get that. I've got our obsolete warriors heading south to make sure. Tandem is the only way to travel now.

We can go slavery, and should investigate if we can make up the revolt turn before Monarchy. We need also to look at wonders, as the early wonders are cheap compared to the later ones.

I am too bummed out to think about it too much... and pass of the Benginal for the heavy brainwork.

Screenshots, saves, etc follow. Note the saves are before and after founding Fishy, for BSPollux to check. Don't mess with them. Also, the final save is uploaded, but NOT paused as I do not have a pause button on this computer and the ctrl-fn-enter key always scares me (or is it alt-fn-enter? ctrl-alt-enter? whatever, the enter key is where the pause function resides, and I don't dare screw it up).
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Log (confu founded and Jewish spread to us are notable)

Spoiler :

Here is your Session Turn Log from 1560 BC to 1040 BC:

Turn 61, 1560 BC: Darius I adopts Slavery!

Turn 64, 1440 BC: Fishy has been founded.
Turn 64, 1440 BC: You have discovered Bronze Working!

Turn 66, 1360 BC: Barbarian's Archer (3.00) vs Julius Caesar's Warrior (2.00)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Combat Odds: 92.7%
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Julius Caesar's Warrior is hit for 24 (76/100HP)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Julius Caesar's Warrior is hit for 24 (52/100HP)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Julius Caesar's Warrior is hit for 24 (28/100HP)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Julius Caesar's Warrior is hit for 24 (4/100HP)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Barbarian's Archer is hit for 16 (84/100HP)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Barbarian's Archer is hit for 16 (68/100HP)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Julius Caesar's Warrior is hit for 24 (0/100HP)
Turn 66, 1360 BC: Barbarian's Archer has defeated Julius Caesar's Warrior!

Turn 67, 1320 BC: Confucianism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 68, 1280 BC: Darius I converts to Confucianism!

Turn 70, 1200 BC: Judaism has spread in The Rome.

Turn 71, 1160 BC: Zara Yaqob converts to Judaism!

Turn 72, 1120 BC: Darius I is the worst enemy of Saladin.

Turn 73, 1080 BC: You have discovered Iron Working!
Turn 73, 1080 BC: Darius I has founded Tarsus in a distant land.
Turn 73, 1080 BC: Gilgamesh has founded Ur in a distant land.

 

[Zhary]

OOuch
SO much for beeing brave I guess we should have sticked with the original HA plan.

But everything is not lost. If we rush that library in Vineyard we could have phants just in time for const+hbr with a detour to monarchy. Then we could have an army of approx. 8cat+4phats at hanni at turn 125. Ive tested to go up against him in a test game with this army and it was enough but the AIs are close to longbows by then. So its a close call.
I dont really have any better ideas. Maybe hurry to monarchy and build cities for us selves in the jungle?

Have you noticed that Sal is showing a red fist? He hates Darius but there is a small chance that we are the target.
Looking at the diplo situation I would accually suggest that we revolt to Judaism by know. We get sal and Zaras love and an extra happy face in rome. The only risk is that hanni and darius will start hate us but they are bussy hating each other and they are our first targets if we're going for war again.

 

[kcd_swede]

I agree with the religion, one plus happy face in The Rome now is worth about 4 whatever per turn.

Noy sure about your elepult plan, though... it is not an efficient use of resources if we face Lonbows, which we probably will before a second AI can be attacked. The first AI goes just as easy with Cat+archer as with cats-elephants... just more cats. Elephants cost a lot, anyhow.

Only reason to get elephants is for happinesss, hardly a good use of our limited ability to get new cities.

I'd say capture Carthage or whatever gives us horse... then hunker down for a Astro bulbing conq.

Or... thionkong outside the box... if Conq is nerfed (not if, but how badly), then maybe set up for fast SS is the way to go for us. Basically, we gambled and lost... maybe the only way to recover s tro double down?

 

[haphazard1]

I am not totally surprised about the iron. Being Rome going iron and praets would be just too obvious. There probably is some somewhere -- in the polar ice, or on a tiny island that requires Astro to reach -- but it won't be available any time soon.

If Sal is showing the clenched fist, then he has already decided on his war target. Improving relations now will not stop him from declaring if we are that target. So we should definitely be thinking about our military, enough to avoid getting caught by surprise if he sends a stack our way. Archers at least will be needed. Ivory for elephants...well, they do make excellent anti-mounted units. Just need to cover them against spears, which archers (or cats) can do.

I will try to check the latest save and offer more thoughts tomorrow, when I can see better. (Dilated eyes from a visit to the eye doc, hard to focus on things right now.)

 

[kcd_swede]

Figuring out Sal's most likely target.... who is his worst enemy land target? We are.

Bring it on, Sal. And yeah, archery would be good about now.

 

[Zhary]

I think sals most likely target is Presia because:
Darius is sals worst enemy we are not.
His capital is closer.
They might even share borders by now.
They have a differnet religion.

But lets play it safe and tech archery and put a warrior scout to the west.

For our long plans I think that we have to realize that we couldnt conqure the world with an ancient army anyway BSPgave the AI to much bonuses. A military campaign by now is just if its an economical benefit for a later final army with cannons or curs or something like that.

I think we should think about what army we should aim at in the long run:
trebs
Maces
Knights
Curs
Rifles
Cannons

 

[Zhary]

I had a look at the save and I saw that Hanni has both iron and horses. I think we really should plan for an attack on him. Tonight or tomorrow could I run a test if archepluts or elepults is the way to go.

 

[haphazard1]

OK, took a look at the save. (Now that my eyes will focus properly again.)

First thing I saw once the save loaded was iron. Right to the south of us, next to our exploring pair of warriors. So, praets it is I think. We will need to explore a bit more around the location, see if there is any seafood. Otherwise it would be a rather poor site with just deer for food, although the gems would not hurt. But mainly, iron!

Next, Saladin. I think he is coming after us. He dislikes us, we are reachable by land, as close or closer via land as any AI, and (most important) we are the weakest military power in the game. The AI loves to hit the weaklings, and right now that is us. We need to get some defenses in place as quickly as possible -- if even one axe shows up we could get wiped out. We need an archer or two immediately.

So we make preparations, and also plan to get a city for the iron. Then we can build some real units and decide what we want to do about certain AI civs....

 

[Zhary]

I was also think about that southern iron but I would say that I'm not super sure that it's the right choice. It might take as long as elepults to get the iron mine going and by then Hanni has a much better iron city for us in the green double cow city of Utica.

But its calculatable whats the best choice is. I attached a testgame at our current position if someone wants to test but I updated the game with the wrong AI so its only for peace micro test.

 

[haphazard1]

How are we going to take Hannibal's iron city away from him, if he has metal units and we do not? Yes, we could use lots and lots of cats but that will take a while to tech and get ready. Until then we would have nothing but warriors (and soon archers, hopefully) if Saladin or any other AI comes calling at our doorstep. That could get...unpleasant. Having some iron would make us pretty safe from anything the AIs are likely to have any time soon.

A lot depends on just how much of a threat we think Saladin really is.

 

[Zhary]

From a basic analysis about army:
Iron needs rome at size 8+8 archers+settler+escort+improved iron. I quick guess is that is more than 40 turns away.
Phats only need a library in Wineyard and a some cultural grow turn. Approx. 40 turns again but we save a city.

Metal units are not a problem for elepults until pikes and I never seen a pike before longbows.

 

[kcd_swede]

A possibly important discovery: there is weird (not natural by map rolling) coastal tiles near Fishy. This could mean a path to an AI we need to kill is availanle before Astro. I'm thinking 2 workboats from Fishy, the firt to explore, the second to get fish. Its always been Unusual Suspects achilles heal that we make early strategy decisions with insufficient map knowledge. Sometimes we guess right, sometimes not so much.

I feel like we should explore a lot more before we commit to a tech path that limits flexibility. Rushing to elepults limits flexinility - we'd be commited with a lousy tech rate. We'd recover, of course, but lose ground on the competition. Lets get some more exploration before deciding whether city 4 is Elephants or Iron.

Also, for exploring, if we get a GSpy, I think that is his first task... if we get a GSci, we need to consider our options.

 

[kcd_swede]

Calling Benginal!!!!

Give us a sign that you got it and are ready to plan to run a turnset...if you remain silent, we could move on down the order.

Give us a sign, either way.

 

[Zhary]

KCD have you had a look at carthage? A war against hanni would be an economical benefit even if astro would be needed.
I want that city rather than build something stange in the jungle.