SGOTM 21 - Plastic Ducks

Ok, trading Math to Louis for 25+Iron Working.
Also trading Shaka Mysticism for 50

Will upload pic of our empire showing Iron after.
Then take break for night. Really tired.

You'll never guess where the iron was.




Traded Louis Math for 25+Iron Working.
Traded Shaka Mysticism for 45.

Argos is 7 turns from popping borders.
Argos is also going to be whipping a settler next turn on T89.
There is currently a worker in Corinth that was going to be headed up to Fish City, but I guess we might be settling sheep area first now.


Thanks for playing along with me tonight.

Nice work and great play.

I'm glad that we have 1 source of Iron. Micro around Corinth and Argos will change a bit now. We can probably load the Corinth Worker onto the Galley on T88 or T89.

I just saw your edit about Argos' culture too. Hmmm. It's probably too slow to road all that way from Fish City. We could also build a Fort and 1 road on the Iron, but that's very slow as well.

Will think about it a bit. Good night.

Looks like we can get iron online by T94 if we drop the Corinth worker off along with the settler on T91.
Then the worker from Athens can get on the boat T91 afterwards.
On T92, sail the boat into sheep city (assuming it is settled 1W of iron) and both workers start improving iron starting T92.

Capital still gets a 2nd cottage, but Horse City and the horse tile gets improved half as fast with only 1 worker.

Nice, at least the iron is not on a tile without food resource. War can be started once we gather 4~5 swordmans. Some of cata build should be switched to Swordmans.

Kaitzilla said:

Looks like we can get iron online by T94 if we drop the Corinth worker off along with the settler on T91.
Then the worker from Athens can get on the boat T91 afterwards.
On T92, sail the boat into sheep city (assuming it is settled 1W of iron) and both workers start improving iron starting T92.

Capital still gets a 2nd cottage, but Horse City and the horse tile gets improved half as fast with only 1 worker.

Click to expand...

Duckweed said:

The Sheep site (1W of Sheep) covers 7 non-resource tiles, while Fish and Horse sites together cover 7 non-resources tile. Therefore, if a settler is needed to connect the Iron, the odd of Sheep site is higher. 8th cities with GLH is still positive on commerce, moreover, it's possible that the Iron is located in 2nd ring, therefore settler before worker is the right move. Question is whether we should leave 1 worker from Corn site for Sheep/Fish site if Iron is there. This again depends on when Alphabet is available. That's why I suggested a short turn session next.

Click to expand...

The good thing is that it has 1 more forest to chop.

Kaitzilla said:

Looks like we can get iron online by T94 if we drop the Corinth worker off along with the settler on T91.
Then the worker from Athens can get on the boat T91 afterwards.
On T92, sail the boat into sheep city (assuming it is settled 1W of iron) and both workers start improving iron starting T92.

Capital still gets a 2nd cottage, but Horse City and the horse tile gets improved half as fast with only 1 worker.

Click to expand...

We could use the Corinth Worker to finish the GMine:

Mines aren't bad when building Settler/Workers, and they can help manage unhappiness in Corinth.

After the Iron, 1 Worker can chop a Granary while the other improves the Sheep.

---

If 2 Workers are moved to improve the Sheep/Iron, we should try to settle Fish City to benefit from their movement as they return.

Argos could do something like:


It would be good to avoid whipping again in Argos, if that's possible.

The circumnavigation bonus might change things too.

----

Can Corinth whip another Worker > Odeon across T91–3? We need 1 more Worker in the west.

Doshin said:

We could use the Corinth Worker to finish the GMine:

T88: Mine (2/4)
T89: Mine (3/4)
T90: Mine (4/4) <---- or, build a road on the Gems and move the Athens Wkr to complete the mine.
T91: Load onto Galley with Athens Worker
T92: Unload in Iron City. Mine Iron (2/4)​

Mines aren't bad when building Settler/Workers, and they can help manage unhappiness in Corinth.

After the Iron, 1 Worker can chop a Granary while the other improves the Sheep.

Click to expand...

Why not 2 workers pasture the sheep together and then chop the 2 forests respectively?

Duckweed said:

Nice, at least the iron is not on a tile without food resource. War can be started once we gather 4~5 swordmans. Some of cata build should be switched to Swordmans.

...

The good thing is that it has 1 more forest to chop.

Click to expand...

Oh! Ya, 1W of sheep would be better.
The worker+catapult combo down on Thebes island would be stranded until T96 though.
I suppose they can wait 1 turn for the greater good.
They aren't stranded. Can still make it onto the galley T95.
I can't count today.

Doshin said:

We could use the Corinth Worker to finish the GMine:

T88: Mine (2/4)
T89: Mine (3/4)
T90: Mine (4/4) <---- or, build a road on the Gems and move the Athens Wkr to complete the mine.
T91: Load onto Galley with Athens Worker
T92: Unload in Iron City. Mine Iron (2/4)​

Mines aren't bad when building Settler/Workers, and they can help manage unhappiness in Corinth.

After the Iron, 1 Worker can chop a Granary while the other improves the Sheep.

---

If 2 Workers are moved to improve the Sheep/Iron, we should try to settle Fish City to benefit from their movement as they return.

Argos could do something like:

T88: Size 6. Run Scientists. Build Settler.
T89: whip Settler. Size 3.
T90: Size 4. OF into Settler. Run Scientists.
T91: Size 4. Build WB. Run Scientists.
T92: Size 5. Build Settler. Run Scientists.

(slow build Settler. Time build with Galley availability.)​

It would be good to avoid whipping again in Argos, if that's possible.

The circumnavigation bonus might change things too.

----

Can Corinth whip another Worker > Odeon across T91&#8211;3? We need 1 more Worker in the west.

Click to expand...

Sure, that sounds good.
I'll check the micro choices when I get time in a few hours, but broadly speaking this sounds like something we want to do.

I don't think circumnavigation bonus is coming any time soon.
The deep south is blocked by ice, and up north in Mao's country the workboat explorer continues due north.


Ya, Corinth can squeeze in another worker instead of Odeon.
I'm not sure what it does to the catapult build, but we'll make it work.
The extra worker would free up Argos to build a settler instead of worker.

Duckweed said:

Why not 2 workers pasture the sheep together and then chop the 2 forests respectively?

Click to expand...

I only eyeballed it. We're working the Iron for 3 turns minimum, so I figured it'd be better to chop once.

Quick run through (untested):


T96 is the earliest that we could build the Pasture.

Doshin said:

I only eyeballed it. We're working the Iron for 3 turns minimum, so I figured it'd be better to chop once.

Quick run through (untested):

T92: work unimproved Sheep. (Iron Mine 2/4)

T93: 2F2H. Work improved Iron.
T94: 3F8H (Workers start and complete road)
T95: 4F14H (one Worker Pasture, one Worker to Forest)

T96: 5F20H (Pasture 2/4, Chop 1/3)
T97: 6F26H (Pasture 3/4, Chop 2/3)
T98: 7F32H (Pasture 4/4, Chop 3/3. Work improved Sheep.)

T99: 11F +3OF (Granary complete. Workers road the Sheep or move to pre-chop Fish City.)​

T96 is the earliest that we could build the Pasture.

Click to expand...

This way uses the granary better, hence faster growth to size3. However, improving the Sheep 2 turns earlier also means 2C from earlier sheep pasture, and earlier 2nd pop to work on Iron. It's probably food vs hammer + commerce.

The PPP never really addressed tech trades.

What are your guys thoughts on trading Math to Elizabeth for 20+Monotheism?
Then next turn, we could try to trade Mono for from Louis and Willem.

We should hang onto Aesthetics+Alphabet+Currency+Construction for as long as possible?

Do we want to try to get Friendly with Elizabeth?
If we did, she'd trade us Code of Laws.
Converting to Judaism would immediately get +2 relations if we got a religion spread or captured a Jewish city.

I'm not sure giving into demands from Isabella is worth it anymore.
It might be better to embrace Judaism since we'll be so happy cap starved this game.
And a lot of the cities we will be capturing will be Jewish.
And with Temple of Artemis, Elizabeth has 60% odds to make a Great Prophet who might make a shrine for us.
She is Philosophical so it will only take her 10 turns to make a Great Person with that wonder.


What else hrmm.
Did we want to try to squeeze in an extra warrior build somewhere before T94?
Or can we still build warriors once the iron hooks up?

Also, we've go so many foreign trade routes that the tech rate in the Real Game is higher than in the Test Game now. (around +17 per turn)

Kaitzilla said:

The PPP never really addressed tech trades.

What are your guys thoughts on trading Math to Elizabeth for 20+Monotheism?
Then next turn, we could try to trade Mono for from Louis and Willem.

"No" to a Math trade, IMO. I'd prefer to keep strong trading chips in case a CoL trade opens up.

We can offer Iron Working for Monotheism next turn, and try to get Louis/Willem's gold with that.


We should hang onto Aesthetics+Alphabet+Currency+Construction for as long as possible?

Depends on the AI, what they have, and what other AIs have to offer.

As some general rules: keep Alphabet away from Shaka/Willem/Elizabeth. Currency will help the AI tech, which will be good in some cases and bad in others. Try to keep Louis away from techs that lead directly to Nationalism.

Do we want to try to get Friendly with Elizabeth?
If we did, she'd trade us Code of Laws.
Converting to Judaism would immediately get +2 relations if we got a religion spread or captured a Jewish city.

This is too expensive atm. Switching into Judaism after a lucky spread would bring us to +6 relations overall, but waste a turn in Anarchy. We'd then need to gift 1&#8211;2 big techs to make her Friendly.

I'm not sure giving into demands from Isabella is worth it anymore.
It might be better to embrace Judaism since we'll be so happy cap starved this game.
And a lot of the cities we will be capturing will be Jewish.
And with Temple of Artemis, Elizabeth has 60% odds to make a Great Prophet who might make a shrine for us.

I agree with all of this. Isabella doesn't seem to have any foreign trade routes, due to her stubbornness, so will fall further behind the other AI.


What else hrmm.
Did we want to try to squeeze in an extra warrior build somewhere before T94?
Or can we still build warriors once the iron hooks up?

We could pillage the Iron later. There are a lot of other builds that we need more than Warriors.

Also, we've go so many foreign trade routes that the tech rate in the Real Game is higher than in the Test Game now. (around +17 per turn)

Click to expand...

One thing that interests me is the amount of Willem has available. It stayed at 100G even after we sold Mathematics for 15G.

This suggests that we can get most of our gold back.

We might even be able to purchase a further hint in ~5 turns and sell an outdated tech in ~6 turns, if Willem hasn't met another AI with Alphabet and Currency by then.


@Duckweed

Oh ya, Iron Working can be traded next turn for .

I'll redo the PPP for the next 7 turns and add a tech trading outline.
The 2 main unknowns (Whale+Fish City and iron location) have been revealed and we know we'll have iron online T94, so planning out until T95 shouldn't have any more surprises for us.
Shouldn't take too long with copy+paste.

**Edit**
Ok, got a micro I like.
Horses get hooked up T99 and iron T94.
Can DoW Willem on T99 by moving 3Swords+3Catapults 1W of Utrecht (All have promos)
This will be followed by another Catapult (with promo) 1 tile behind the stack and a steady stream of units behind that.

Writing it out now.
Here's the test run Turn 95 screenshot.

And here's the army quickly forming from it.
Turn 95 to Turn 99:

Should have 7 Swordmen and 7 Catapults total by Turn 100.

@Doshin
That's one reasons why I want to improve Sheep as soon as possible. Another reason depends on what's the 2nd build in the city. If we want to start a worker as soon as it grows to size 2 and 1 pop whip it, this earlier worker should be able to help the growth of Fish site.

Getting tired of difficult Greek Names.
I'll make the extra effort to name the new cities properly (whales, iron, and horse)

Techs
Turn 88 - 100% Music
Turn 92 - ??% Music (Just enough slider to complete)
Turn 93 - 0% Code of Laws

Previous Turnset Results here

Know Your Enemy!
Shaka, Willem, Elizabeth, Mansa, Isabella, Louis XIV, Mao, and 2 unmet AI (Catherine +1 more)

Empire
Athens
T88 - Settler; Deer,GMine,RiverFarm,RiverCottage,Coast,pop
T89 - Whip Settler; Deer,GMine,RiverFarm (Will found Horse City 1S1E of horse tile on T93)
T90 - Odeon; Deer,Crabs,RiverFarm
T91 - Odeon; Deer,Fur,x2RiverCottage
T92 - Odeon; Deer,Wheat,RiverFarm,Fur
T93 - Odeon; Deer,Wheat,RiverFarm,GMine,RiverCottage
T94 - Odeon; Deer,Wheat,RiverFarm,x2RiverCottage,Cottage (Athens should have just enough food to grow to Size 6 with this. Can take wheat next turn)

Thebes
T88-T89 Worker; x2Crab,Fur,Coast
T90 - Whip Worker; Crab,Fur
T91 - Catapult; x2Crab
T92 - Odeon; x2Crab
T93 - Odeon; x2Crab,Fur
T94 Phalanx; x2Crab,Fur (Boards Galley1 T99, walks off galley1 into Athens T100)

Sparta
T88 - Catapult; Crab,Cow,Gems,Lake,GMine
T89 - Odeon; Crab,Cow,Gems,Lake,GMine
T90 - Barracks; Crab,Cow,Gems,Lake,GMine
T91 - Whip Barracks; Crab,Cow,Gems,Lake
T92 - Catapult; Crab,Cow,Gems,Lake
T93 - Whip Odeon; Crab,Cow,Lake
T94 - Swordsman; Crab,Cow,Gems,Lake

Corinth
T88-T91 Catapult; RiverGem,Gem,Wheat
T91 - Catapult; RiverGem,Gem,Wheat,RiverFarm
T92 - Worker; RiverGem,Gem,GMine,RiverGrassland
T93 - Whip Worker; RiverGem,Gem
T94 - Catapult; RiverGem,Gem,Wheat

Argos
T88 - Settler; x3Fish,Coast,x2Scientist
T89 - Whip Settler; x3Fish (Will found Iron City 1W of sheep tile on T92)
T90 - Settler; x3Fish
T91 - Market; x3Fish
T92 - Market; x3Fish,Coast
T93-T94 Settler; x3Fish,x2Scientist

Knossos (Deer+Gem City)
T88 - Catapult; Deer,GrassForest
T89-T90 Catapult; Deer,RiverFarm
T91-T92 Catapult; Deer,RiverFarm,GrassForest
T93 - Catapult; Deer,RiverFarm,x2GrassForest
T94 - Swordsman; Deer,RiverFarm,x2GrassForest

Mycenae (Corn City)
T88 - Catapult; Corn
T89 - Barracks; Corn,GrassForest
T90 - Whip Barracks; Corn
T91-92 Wealth; Corn,RiverFarm
T93 Wealth; Corn,RiverFarm,GrassForest (Huge overflow from barracks whip preserved for Swordsman with 4 turn into 4)
T94 Swordsman; Corn,RiverFarm,GrassForest

Whales City (founded T89 1N1W of eastern fish tile)
T89-T92 Workboat; Fish
T93 - Build ; Fish
T94 - Whip Workboat; Fish (I'd rather get 2 less turns of later than 4 extra , so no waiting to whip)

Iron City (founded T92 1W of sheep tile)
T92 - Granary; SheepTile
T93 - Granary; Iron
T94 - Build; Iron

Horse City (founded T93 1S1E of horse tile)
T93-T94 Granary; HorseTile

Workers
Worker (that starts 2W of Sparta)
T88 - Road 2W of Sparta
T89 - Move to 3W1S of Sparta
T90-T91 Road 3W1S of Sparta
T92 - Road 1E of horse tile
T93-T94 Pasture horse tile 1N1W of Horse City

Worker (starts 2E of Knossos)
T88-T89 Farm 2E of Knossos
T90-T91 Farm 1S2W of Mycenae
T92 - Move to forest 1W of Mycenae
T93-T94 Chop forest 1W of Mycenae

Worker (starts 1S1W of Mycenae)
T88-T89 Farm 2E of Knossos
T90-T91 Farm 1S2W of Mycenae
T92 Fort 2S2E of Knossos and stop
T93 - Move to forest 2S of Knossos
T94 - Chop forest 2S of Knossos

Worker (starts in forest 1S2W of Mycenae)
T88-T89 - Chop forest 1S2W of Mycenae
T90 - Farm 1S2W of Mycenae
T91 - Move to forest 2S1W of Mycenae
T92-T94 Chop forest 2S1W of Mycenae

Worker (starts 1W of Athens)
T88-T89 Cottage 1W of Athens
T90 - Move to 1S1W of Corinth
T91 - Board galley 2N2E of Corinth
T92-T93 Unload from galley2 in Iron City, then Mine iron tile 1S1E of Iron City.
T94 - Road iron

Worker (produced in Corinth on T88)
T88 - Road 1N or Corinth
T89 - Farm 2N of Corinth
T90 - Farm 2N of Corinth and stop
T91 - Board galley 2N2E of Corinth
T92-T93 Unload from galley2 in Iron City, then Mine iron tile 1S1E of Iron City.
T94 - Road iron

Worker (produced in Thebes T91)
T91-T94 Cottage 1N1W of Thebes

Worker (produced in Corinth T94)
T94 - Move to forest 2S2E of Mycenae

Unit Micro:
Galley 1 (Starts near barb city)
T88 - Head to 2S2W of barb city to drop off warrior 1N2W of eastern fish.
Unload settler 1N1W of eastern fish tile.
T89 - Move 1N1W, pick up warrior that finished exploring Shaka, then move 1S1E and pick up other warrior.
T90 - Sail east to drop warriors off on arctic islands to fogbust.
T99 - Can be 1S1E of Thebes with 1/2 left if needed, or can keep going east to explore.

Warrior (starts in Galley 1)
T88 - Unload from galley to 1N2W of fish tile to get some exercise.
T89 - Get back on the galley to fogbust arctic fish islands to the east.

Scout
T88 - Explore west past The Hague.
Only return to south of Amsterdam if there is nothing left to explore out west.

Settler
T88 - Unload 1S of galley.
T89 - Found Whales+Fish City 1N1W of the eastern fish tile.

Workboat (starts 2W of the initial fish tile near Whales City spot)
T88 - Move to improve the eastern fish
T89 - Improve the fish tile 1S1E of Whales City

Galley 2
T88 - Move to 1S1W of Argos
T90 - After settler boards from Argos, move 2N1W.
T91 - Move 1N and drop off settler 1W of iron tile.
Then after 2 workers board, move 1N again.
T92 - Move 1N1E into Iron City, unload workers to improve iron, and then move 1S1W
T93-T94 Move towards 1N1E of Athens to pick up worker+catapult from Thebes island.

Warrior (starts near Shaka's territory)
T89 - Board galley 1S1E to garrison tundra fish island against barb galley spawning

Settler (produced in Athens T90)
T90 - Move to Sparta
T91-T92 Move to forest 1S1E of horse tile
T93 - Found Horse City 1S1E of horse tile

Settler (produced in Argos T90)
T90 - Move 1S1W into galley2
T91 - Move to 1W of iron tile from galley2
T92 - Found Iron City 1W of sheep tile

Warrior (starts 1N2W of sheep tile)
T91 - Move to 2N2W of sheep tile
T92 - Move to 3N3W of sheep tile
Once replaced by Great Artist, can head to garrison Mycenae

Great Artist (produced in Athens T93)
T93-T94 Move to 2N of Corinth. Will replace sheep warrior who is spawnbusting.

Catapults know what to do...

=====================

Exploration Strategy
Far East Workboat - Continue searching in the North+East direction. Circumnavigation bonus is also now a priority.
If no north or northeast passage exists, circle around Mao and the desert island counterclockwise and then check Southeast tip of desert island for passage.
If none, then head south exploring French lands and possible eastern passage.
Far West Warrior (near Shaka's lands) -
Will get on Galley T89 and help fogbust arctic fish islands to keep barb galleys from forming.
Scout Will scout area west of The Hague. If scout runs out of land to explore, will double back and spy south of Amsterdam.

Stopping Conditions

Start of Turn 95 is reached
Barbs threaten Horse City or Barb Galleys appear
Willem loses a city
Elizabeth goes war mode (fist)
Something very unexpected happens

Diplo
T88 Trade Mansa Deer for 2 per turn
T89 Trade Iron Working for to any AI with a good chunk.

Refuse all tech demands except for little techs like Iron Working or Writing.
Refuse to convert to any religion.
Refuse all demands
Refuse Shaka everything
Refuse all AI DOW requests
Grant all AI resource demands except for Shaka or Willem. (We don't want a 10 turn peace treaty with them)
Never trade for Meditation
Sign open borders with new AI at end of turn. Spend 10 if needed.

Espionage
100% on Mansa
We can see his research in +4 more

Check Every Turn
Save at beginning and end of each turn
Zoom out and check for the explorers
If any AI is plotting war besides Shaka+Willem (fist icon)

Some comments of military production:

Swords are possibly the key to launch the war, not catas since there's a chance that we could follow Shaka's SOD to steal a city. That's why I mentioned 4~5 swords. Those swords can go alone without any cata if Shaka's SOD is marching.

Horse site is of low priority now, 1 worker is enough. That worker should improve the horse instead of chopping granary. Let's save the worker force for more chops for Corn and Deer site. For example:

Corn site should start a sword at T94 and whip at T95, produce another sword at T96 with a chop, the cata can be delayed.

Thebes could start a unit at T94 and whip on T95.

The worker from Corinth could partially irrigate the north riverside grassland instead of mining the hill since it does not look like Corinth is going to work on that hill tile.

Edit: What happened to the new city culture? why the Iron site has 12 culture?

4swords+2catas on T99 instead of 3sword+3cata?
Easily done

If you don't 2 workers for Horse City, we can keep 1 extra worker up north sure.

Corinth uses the GMine for 2 turns. Fixed the micro.
Fixed Iron City micro too. Now uses the overflow bug correctly to pop borders earlier.
PPP is now almost entirely what I was thinking. Need to check it some more.

Thebes really needs to whip Library on T95 and possibly make a workboat T96 for fish city up north.
We need it working 2 scientists T97 so we can have 2 Great Scientist when we need them.



Blargh phone brb
gimme an hour

Checking the PPP now. Will post a reply soon.

Corinth could use the shared mine with Sparta if needed.

Why do we want to hire scientists in Thebes? Capital could produce the 3rd GP. The only GS we need soon is to bulb Edu.

Hmmm. How about putting the Argos OF into a Warrior?


Warriors aren't urgent, but this would let us grow to size 5 quickly and any OF will go into a new Settler... I can test in 15 minutes.

I agree that there's not much sense putting ~6 into a Work Boat in Argos, although we will need more WBs for the 1-tile Fish Islands.

---

Agree with Duckweed's comments, esp. about the urgency of Swords and the management of Horse/Deer/Fur.

I tested a bunch of Sheep/Iron micro too, and figured out what I think is best. But that happens later, so it can wait.

Also, I think Sheep/Iron could produce the WB for Fish City.