Moonraker

Well, I'll get a closer look but now I can say that the three threads you have posted refer to philosophical, organized or the combination tehreof. Ergo, they are seriously biased. it's like using financial to show the advantages of a CE.

I also don't quite understand the need to road between the capital and the second city. There is a river, and they will be able to trade between themselves very soon upon the settlement of city 2. I don't remember the details re trade routes in the game mechanics, so I might be wrong, but I think we have all the prerequsites to get trade with Mao w/o any additional trade routes to his trading area.

'd leave the pottery-grannary thing to Cam to deal with but as I need to get the TS done I'll chop the cottage plots to get the SH and then we'll see whether farms or cottages make mteam sense. I'm definitely for the cottages (having in mind later seafood farming, of course).

TS finished.

Vienna settled in 2400 BC
Slavery in
1t to TWSH whipped the last turn
Worker stopped chopping the 2nd cottage tile and ready to move towards Horse.
Hindu fdl in 2440
Mao founded a city closer to us in 2480 BC
Scouts killed 3 lions.

Save is below.

No great developments, but I tried to screenshoot the new Mao's and ours.

SH doesn't look like good decision... you need 2 more workers asap and 1 more settler...
the aggressive Mao settling puts pressure.

the worker 1 should chop all those forests around cap into those 2 workers and settlers at size 3 imo.

crossing fingers for no barb pressure.

vranasm said:

SH doesn't look like good decision...

Click to expand...

Quite possibly so... qui vivra verra...

vranasm said:

you need 2 more workers asap and 1 more settler...
the aggressive Mao settling puts pressure.

the worker 1 should chop all those forests around cap into those 2 workers and settlers at size 3 imo.

crossing fingers for no barb pressure.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'd rather start building military units, maybe even instead of workers and settlers.

And I certainly expected that Mao will keep to one city or, at worst, settle the jungle and not the nice lands between us.

you need at least 1 worker before MP.

that horse needs improving and roading back to capital to build better unit then warriors for defense.

you can always put 1T of hammers into warrior and go back to producing workers/settler(s) to get flexibility

You went too soon for the SH, it was ok to get SH eventually, but not so soon. I am the meaning the team didn't even discuss this properly ;-).

Btw another problematic thing with this soon SH is that I am almost 100% sure your first GP will be GP.

vranasm said:

you need at least 1 worker before MP.

that horse needs improving and roading back to capital to build better unit then warriors for defense.

you can always put 1T of hammers into warrior and go back to producing workers/settler(s) to get flexibility

You went too soon for the SH, it was ok to get SH eventually, but not so soon. I am the meaning the team didn't even discuss this properly ;-).

Btw another problematic thing with this soon SH is that I am almost 100% sure your first GP will be GP.

Click to expand...

You might be right, although there's a river flowing through Vienna and I expect that it might be enough to road the horse to Vienna or the river itself.

The GrPr might not be so bad if we get a religion and a shrine. Money will be a problem soon, right?! And the fast monument in Vienna has its advantages, which you too seemed to point to. Earlier culture speed-up in the capital is just a negligible side-dish, of course.

Had a look, seems ok. We could have probably squeezed in a few one or to workers/settlers/warriors before SH but at least it is finished and we won't lose it now. I rate we need to start REX-ing ASAP and get MZ off our land as a matter of urgency... unless we plan on rushing him early with chariots

it's actually pretty important to analyze situations properly (and I don't mean to sound too harsh on woop and FR on this, but it has to be said)

the situation actually is pretty sorrow.

The horses are at least 10 turns away from connecting to empire (4T for worker move, 4T pasture, 2T road). There is 0 food improvement in city 2.
The average number of cities on continent seems to be around 2, which is signal for barbs to actively seek for tiles on border to pillage.

You have no standing spawnbust army in position. You have no troops to defend.

Roading back from horses towards capital would take another ~8 turns.
There is one possible good thing and that is touching culture around the coast (this is probably what you mean FR). This has to be correctly calculated at what point you get the touching culture between city 2 and capital.

Once you enter average number of cities 3 then barbs will start attack actively your cities and try to either pillage you or directly get your cities. This is most critical phase of game (where I usually get pillaged on immortal most and occasionally lose cities) and lasts until there comes wave of barb cities when the barb activity will lessen.

Good chariot rushes are around T 60 attack. Not sure with traits of Mao, but if he is pro, just forget it.
Other thing being that the distance is so big that you will throw yourself back for next few thousands of years.

So there is a lot of work to fix the early SH and hammer investment. I think you wait for Cam on this one to bring proper plan, so let's hear him out .

Btw that SH cost starts to payback after 5th city... you're long way off from the 5th city, the early game hammers are more costly.
You invested 2 workers and 2 warriors in wonder, to get some relevant comparison.
Imagine where you would put those warriors to spawnbust (which you have 0) and what amount of work those 2 workers would do (farm and pasture in city 2 at least?)

Always ask yourself about opportunity costs. Such things could cost you games!

I guess you are getting a bit overemotionalized, V.

We have 8 turns till the horses are connected to Vienna, and the capital should be able to build chariots a couple of turns later, if not right away. This seems a good period of time to build some warriors to move to the south while researching pottery or fishing. Then whip the grannary or a WB and switch over to building workers/chariots. I don't think there will be that much of a pillageing as you imply.

As to opportunity costs, they are always there, and even though the odds are that you are right about timing, your calculations are very far from precise. In order to build two warriors and two workers without penalty whipping you would need much more turns than those invested in the SH.

Besides, focusing only on hammers seems logical, but is very biased. Of course, if one knows exactly when to start building a wonder so that not to remain with the fail money as a sorrow compensation, then everybody will be using the time for something else. You seem to forget that monuments provide additional happiness in the cities, that building the SH in the capital took less time than building a monument in Vienna which will allow to start working the gold right after finishing the horses, and so on.

Hats off that you manage the deity level, of course, but if you wanted to be helpful you might have said in your comments something like: guys, if you want to build the SH you should know that this is not that a good idea, and in any case should be done after getting a couple of warriors and workers before that, but also figuring out how to build it before 2000 BC. Well, that would have been helpful, I guess. And could be checked.

no one was mentioning deity here. I was mentioning Immortal and I get sometimes owned there. not building any piedestals here!

To me that you finished SH came completely out of blue. I already posted at page 1, that building SH too soon (there was plan to build this even before 1st settler) is bad for good reasons (I didn't expand enough on those reasons that's fair point).

Even Cam promoted to build some more warriors before SH and mentioned at least once that he plans to build the SH from whip OF.

That's probably the reason for the overreaction. In team games people should not make such big decisions without team consultation.

I expected that the team wants to build the SH "eventually" not in expense of early game expansion.

ok I am just an lurker, but if I would be in the team I would be seriously disappointed with this.

I will have to recheck the whole horses situation. from the SS it looks like you could have improved the horses if you go right away with the worker for pasturing it in around 7T, since it is on river no road needed.
Then it's about the touching culture which needs capital 2nd border pop and city 2 1st border pop. The city 2 can't pop until T11 from now, since SH will be completed next turn.
Not sure with capital.
So I don't really think I am overreacting when I say that horses won't be available for capital sooner then 10 turns. Other thing is that the city 2 can start building chariot in 7 turns, which would be probably very wise.

Yikes - massive cross posts and I didn't refresh the page in the last couple of hours! I'll review all of your posts later.

It's a got it.

I like both Fishing and Pottery next up, and not sure which (both help with whip-regrow cycle) but lean to Pottery. vran's urging toward Writing (Library, Open Borders, Construction-pathway) makes sense, and Pottery does extend that small 'research discount'.

Generally I'm still thinking as a 'down the track plan' that peaceful expansion and moving swiftly to War Elephants & Catapults versus China is our best move against the Protective Archers.

dunno how Cam will view replaying TS, but I did 2 alternative approaches from woop's save, I think the alt2 is a bit better.

I won't normally do it, I do this only to offer a bit insight why I tend to do things certain way.

What you will see is that the SH is not done of course, but both saves have very good progress on SH, namely alt has 62 hammers in SH, alt2 has even more, due to the simple thing that I left in alt2 worker to chop 1 forest.
Alt on the other hand has already improved the horses, thus city 2 works improved tile.

What should be obvious first sight that we have fogbusters in place south and south east (1 more warrior compared to "live") AND 2 workers (instead of just 1).

Regarding the horses, they are NOT riverside as evident by "alt" save where they are improved, but city 2 doesn't have them in resource list top right, so they need the road.

vranasm,

Thanks for you interest and contributions!

All,

I've read the comments, and take on board what was being suggested about Stonehenge. I'm a bit in agreement with both views: With Buddhism going relatively quickly, and having at least one Industrious leader on the map, there were signs that Stonehenge was under a degree of threat. The team did prioritise it, so I don't mind the concerted effort. On the other hand, it's true that it has held up our natural growth quite a bit - I certainly wasn't in favour of going for it without getting out at minimum one Settler first as earlier proposed, and envisaged that we'd use whip overflow in conjunction with other builds, and forest chops, to get this Wonder done rather than a slow build. Still, as far as this game goes it's a moot point, but for 'educational' purposes, it's probably worth noting that with a degree of risk, taking a bit more time to develop the empire and concurrently get Stonehenge up might have been a gamble worth taking.

From here ...

I guess the first question is what to do about the seafood and Fishing. Both Fishing (Work Boats) and Sailing traderoute: along coast {Horses to capital}, Lighthouse { and pre-req for the Great Lighthouse?), have attraction, but two Work Boats plus a Lighthouse are fairly expensive options in light of our need for other builds. I'm also mindful of pillaging Barbarian Galleys.

For now I'm thinking that the wet Rice and grassland Cows should be adequate food-haul enough to defer Fishing and Work Boats in preference to Pottery and Writing. Getting a Granary in the capital will really help our whip efficiency, which can be leveraged hard courtesy of the extra happiness we now have.

I see the big demands being; another Settler, two Workers, and three Warriors. Furthermore, we'll want Chariots pretty quickly too for better Barbarian control.

I'm proposing;

Bring the Scouts closer to home to limit Barbarian spawnbusting.

Bibracte to complete Stonehenge but get going on a Settler after that with the benefit of a chop. Partial Warrior build to re-grow. Then swing over to a Worker. Look for whip opportunities that could help get out a Warrior quickly with overflow if possible.

Vienne to grow a pop' point with the Warrior build, and then start on a Worker.

As per above - Pottery > Writing.

I am not sure where City #3 will go ... please note four options that I think could be worth considering to curb Mao's expansion toward us:



'A' is the most conservative site, but possibly the strongest. Lack of fresh water will limit its growth until we chain irrigate, however a good production hub that will give us Copper.

'B' is quite food poor, and reliant on plains Wheat and plains Cows for growth. It picks up a Spice for later on (so three resources all up), and is a natural blocker for Mao's possible expansion.

'C' and 'D' are more 'in your face' in terms of China, and we'll probably hit the 'close borders' diplomatic modifier. 'C' gets the western Spice, 'D' competes with China for the Copper. Neither are particularly exciting from a food-haul perspective, with just the plains Cows.

Views? Other site suggestions?

When I talked about city places in some posts ago I was always thinking about B in 1N position. Gets 1st ring plains cow, gets the wheat (4F1H before CS isn't bad! it isn't just stellar, but tile output is still 5 which is pretty good), gets the Ivory (which are claimed by Vienna, but I always planned them for "B", since vienna has other good land around the river and east), 2 spices, but lacks a bit those southern hills.

But those hills I planned for city near the plains cow, if I remember right there is some other food source too.

I would have slightly oppose you with investing the chop into settler. I would invest better into worker and try to finish 2nd worker asap. 1 worker then stays to chop, the other goes to city 2 to finally start improvements there.

Having 3 cities claiming land without tiles infrastructure will not help you in this situation.

Cam, do you think you could post a youtube set? I think it would be very educational. I also think it would be appreciated by me

Still a few pauses in the dialogue for 'thinking time' and the mandatory "umms" and "errs", however;


Renamed the cities; Bibracte is now Prague (Casino Royale, vranasm ) and Vienne is now Vienna (The Living Daylights, "The feeling is gone - Only you and I - It means nothing to me - This means nothing to me - Oh Vienna!" {I've been watching a lot of Ashes to Ashes again lately}).

The city I'm guessing is Shanghai that's encroached on our turf I suspect has become the Jewish Holy City, so there'll be a bit of culture pressure I guess 'round them there parts. Mao Zedong has adopted Judaism.

We've met Churchill, who's got the Hindu Holy City and has adopted the religion.

We went 1-2 in the Battle with the Barbs ... lost a Scout and a Warrior, killed a Warrior.

Several resources are hooked up; Horses, Gold and Ivory - I'm kicking myself however for not improving the Floodplain immediately south of Vienna. There's a Worker there now. Also Prague and Vienna are connected.

The Wheel, Pottery, and Stonehenge all in. We're close to finishing Writing.

The Settler can found a new city - but I wanted confirmation from the roster before committing to the site in light of prospective Chinese cultural pressure:

Will have a look at the save an comment soon. I am unsure whether the more aggressive settle (in place) is wisest or whether we should settle on the alt spot. It may be worth checking to see if we can see the city itself and determine that it is, in fact, the Jewish holy city.

I'm surprised that we've hit the same issue as we did with P'yongyang in the Fu Manchu game, with a Holy City quite close to our settling grounds.

I must say that I'm about 90% sure that is the spot where the Jewish Holy City is. He might have another city that we can't see where Judaism landed, and that border pop may have come from a Monument, but the Holy City theory just seems much more likely to me.

I am OK to settle on that spot where the Settler is now, but a less aggressive approach that could work may be;



"E" on the coast strikes me as a pretty decent commerce-oriented site, and I've tried to find spots to the east from there.

"F" could be an OK production site, with plains Cows, grassland Copper, some riverside grasslands, and hills, but as earlier noted, will be so-so until we get Civil Service to better irrigate its lands. With the Horses we have access to now, we should be able to spawnbust safely and expand peacefully if we want to go down that pathway for a while - so rushing to the Copper isn't crucial if we're not going to rush at Mao with Axes and Gallic Warriors.

"G" is safely out of the way of Chinese culture if this is considered to be of concern, and retains the two food resources and the Spices, as well as picks up some grassland to the west of its BFC. It can also steal the Ivory from Vienna if that suits. Once again, given the number of plains tiles, this isn't a great site by any means, but decent enough as a blocker if Mao was to expand further west or north-west. This would be the next city I'd settle, and we could look at "E" or "F" after that, or another city south of "G" picking up that south Wheat in order to form an extended border (?).

Anyway, that's one possibility.

I like the idea of SIP. The MZ started the aggression by settling in our face in the first place! However, it may be wise to hold off settling for a turn or two to see whether it is, in fact, the Jewish Holy City. What do you guys think of that? Or should we just settle an alternate spot?

For the record, I vote for settle where we are...

We can't enter Chinese land until we have open borders (to confirm that Shanghai is the Jewish Holy City). If we work the Gold mine we can get Writing in two however and then negotiate open borders.

Personally I'd assume that it is the Holy City (and that we're probably wasting time by confirming it), and we'll be in for a culture battle if we put our third city too close to it (which may or may not be OK). I'm fine to pull back a smidgen and go for "G" or vran's previously suggested spot of 1E of "G".

There's a possible case to go 4S of "G", but our chaperone Warrior is very injured and would fall at the first battle.

I'll leave the final call you yourself (and FiveRings if he surfaces in time).