SGOTM 06 - Fifth Element

great news, greatbeyond, beyond my wildest dreams. ehm...

I suppose now no one has to complain about the wheel as our first next tech, and a worker as our next, immediate build.
No contacts with any AI?

And, since the next one will be my TS, i post a plan:

1) build queue: Worker-barracks
2) research: wheel - hunting - AH - archery
3) it's OK to whip the worker ASAP?
4) mine copper or gold first?

my votes:
1) yes, eventually switch to a 2nd worker when back at size 3 (not on my TS)
2) of course, YES, in this order
3) yes!!!
4) not so determined... perhaps gold is better, let's wait.

Greatbeyond, if you want to edit your Report, just copy/paste the content of the 2 txts in your post, just use the "spoil" function.
This way the "forum tags" will display in the right color, and both will be easier to read... BTW a fun report, keep it up!

I got the save
If there's clear consensus on the above i will play in some 18-20 hours, otherwise i'll wait until we agree.
Let's keep 20 (19) turns or down to 15?

edit:
crossposted with Merum
hey, i posted a roster eons ago, hands down
no problem, just i fear you're growing old: or it's memory, or it's sight...

sorry guys, we're NOT on a river... our fresh water is from the lake!
just modify my test game to try, but i'm sure 99%

edit: SCRATCH THAT. I just tested it in the world builder. Our city is not on the river, so it will NOT auto-hook. Therefore wheel next is absolutely mandatory.

I agree with everything BLubmuz just posted. Wheel next, whip the worker, and I think we should hook up the Copper first.

edit again: actually, since we have copper, we might want to think about going Wheel -> Agriculture -> AH instead of Wheel -> Hunting -> AH. Hunting doesn't do much for us at the moment. Axemen immediately and find some cities to destroy! Agriculture will help us work our gold, copper, and hills immediately.

edit yet again: considering the possibility that we are alone on an island, we should reserve judgment on what to mine first (the copper or the gold) based on whether or not we have any AI contact by the time our Worker is done. If we make contact, mine the copper. If we don't, mine the gold.

he ehe

don't forget that pasturing cows gives 4f+2h, absolutely invaluable while working the gold! in addiction, we have no good tiles to farm, if you don't consider we can farm banana and/or dyes: but those are wasted worker turns, we can discuss them later.
Working the mined copper gives 1f+5h+1g, wonderful! London will be a powerhouse.

If it's not clear, i'm strongly for the path i proposed.
Good idea the contacts for decide what prioritize for mining:
if anyone shows, i'll mine the gold, otherwise the copper.

Let's try to simulate:
when the first mine will be done, wheel will be on line, so:
7 turns for the mine (including the lost one) 3 + 3 for the road...
in any case, the worker needs 13 turns for mine and connect each resource, and:
1) if we go for gold first, we can research archery/AH after wheel/hunting, the barracks will complete before the worker finishes to connect the copper, so AH is useless (by the improvement point of view), but we can start an archer to protect the copper. AH will be online on turn 54, archery on t45 (barracks done t52)
2) goin' for copper first, gives small boost in production (barracks done t49), but we'll suffer in research: archery t48, AHt59

since we cannot have the barracks completed, i prefere gold first, in any case.
We'll need a bit of MM.
Then a bunch of archers, cost 37 against 52 for an axe, and after we'll have protect our resources, we can start to explore aggressively.
But let me do another test...
bah i've tried to put the wheel after H/AH/Ar, but not a great improvement in growth, and a 3 workers turns lost... forget it.

edit
Thanks Merum, i don't know if the "c" was a typo or a true mistake.
of course you're right, even on the translation
and i confirm the wheel thing: only after the road is completed you got the message "con... you gained access bla bla"

perhaps you didn't notice my question 'cause the above-mentioned problems :what about your chinese sojourns?

If you look at our city, there's clearly a road hooking it to the river. Why would it be there if it wasn't hooked? If it's really not, then we're going to have to go with wheel next.

Regarding the roster, it's definitely old age.

English tip for Blubmuz: Substitute "addition" for "addiction" in this context... "addiction" I believe translates to something like "dipendenza" in Italian?

Edit: I replied to the China question earlier, Blub. I don't have that job anymore... looking for a new one. I suppose I should change my location info for the time being.

Too bad about the wheel thing. If we're going to mine gold first, then I'd go for archery. If we're going after copper and axes first, then I'd go for wheel.

My TS plan (edited):

BLubmuz said:

1) build queue: Worker-barracks
2) research: wheel - hunting - archery - AH
3) whip the worker ASAP
4) mine gold first unless we are threatened

Click to expand...

my reasons are explained in my tests reports, see my #63.

@Merum:
perhaps i can suffer of the same problems... i completely missed that part of your post !

what about send an email to Brian? his last activity is still at 11/27!

Graph gazing:
first, a good sign: our color is yellow, my favorite!
second: power graph
it seems we are the only team not started with a worker,
and 2 teams wandered with the settler for some 4-5 turns
strange the trash team graph, they seem in half-way, but i can't figure how!

Addressing the points as indicated by Blubmuz

1 - Definitely worker next, follow worker with a Barracks or warrior.
The benefit of a warrior is that we send two warriors out to scout and keep the AI pinned in or steal a worker. If we follow up with an Axeman, he will gain experience by killing Barbarians.

2 - Whip the worker as soon as we can with a sacrifice of 1 pop

3 - Research Wheel. Looking at the original screen shot, the tile we settled on only showed 2 food. If it was on a river it would also show a gold.
Follow Wheel with AH, as this lets us build a pasture for the cows, then Pottery or Farming

4 - I think mining the copper first gives the most benefit. I will try another test game. Then I think we should move to the forest 1S of the Lake and chop it to rush something. Once AH is complete , build a pasture for the cows.In my previous ones if we cottage the dyes we don't get as much gold as mining the gold would, but we can get close and not sacrifice growth, and faster growth allows us to pop rush. (if we research pottery after AH) otherwise mine gold.

As you can see from the number of my posts, I was mainly a reader of the forums and not a contributor. It took me a little bit to figure out how to post the results like Merum suggested.

Thanks for the opportunity to start first, though I was afraid I would send us to our doom with one wrong move. I anticipate that when it comes back around to me, I will have to be even more careful.

Blubmuz, feel free to sprinkle your posts with Italian as I feel it would be interesting to learn some. I took almost 5 years of French (back in the dark ages) and without practice have lost most of it. C'est la vie

Copper! Nice one! Well done, GB.

Again, I have no way to test it, but I'd prefer to have worker 1 whipped, chop first off into worker 2 while building barracks (or archer) using MM. Possibly even whip out the second with overflow into barracks (or archer). 2 workers is a must here, imo.

If in fact we are alone on an island then I really think this makes things harder in the long run. I'd rather knock out one AI before they can get a big advantage.

Someone remind me if WW is different on AW. With an isolated island this could be huge.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but we seem to have consensus on my first 3 points.

Only the 4th (mine gold or copper) has to be decided.
I'm in favor of gold, unless we're threatened.

Then i made a mid-term proposal:
In our SGs we never went for Oracle, and we finished in the last positions.

If, after this "worker techs path" is completed we'll go for the religious path, i mean:
Myst-poly-priest-writing, then pottery, we can try to chop a settler, then the Oracle, after a good number of archers are send in exploring and eventually pillaging duties.
Remember, we're on prince, a safe date for Oracle can be around 1100-1000 BC and we GOT production.
Lemme do a test.... OK, done, highlights:
techs:
wheel t32 - hunting t39 - archery t45 - AH t54
myst t60 - poly t69 - priest t75 (1750BC)
writing t85 - pottery t93

builds:
barracks t57 - archer t58 (i started the archer right when the tech was online, to be safe)
archer #2 t66 - axe t70 - settler t80 (chopped) - founded York, start barracks
started Oracle t81, chopped/mined/roaded both grassland/forest/hills, Oracle done in t96 (1120BC)

note: Stonehenge not yet built!

if we go this way we can choose between CoL (750b) and MC (964b), the CS sling is doable, but too risky.
and i will prioritize CoL, for couthouses, for have our religion, and possibly our shrine.

TS played:
contact: Mansa (scout killed), mined gold
the road on the gold hill is done, we must connect it, then jump on the copper hill, please move the warriors to protect the copper.

I started archery, according to my plan, if you disagree, feel free to pass on my dead body and change it to AH.
I promoted the scout/lion killer to medic1, it can be useful.

For my thoughts on further strategy, see my previous post.

here is the save

and the updated roster:
Civicide - UP
Merum - On Deck
Sweetacshon - roaming the wilds
Greatbeyond
Blubmuz - Resting

Strauss - MIA

edit
ask and ye shall receive: here is the ss i took right before quit dutch, perhaps you missed from this post, i killed a malinese scout, and the land seems wide.
about speed: we're only 5 active players, everything was decided (if i'm not wrong) and i'm damn curious to know more about this map.
Tell us what do ya think about my post #69 (nice number, it isn't?).

Whow, that was fast. I still wanted to comment on our starting position and we're on turn 40 already It might be good to play a little slower, to give everyone more time to comment. But of course, there's also the problem of taking too long for the entire game. Well, we'll see how it goes.


Do you have some fancy pictures for the lurkers? How big is our city now, how long until growth, and how long until the barracks are completed?

I am now fairly positive that we are alone on our island, or very far from any AI. So I think Animal Husbandry (cows!) should have priority over Archery. (Maybe Hunting wasn't even needed, but what has been done, has been done). Agriculture could be an alternative to AH if we have enough important things to do for the worker, but I doubt that's the case. The cows really have a priority.
edit: Archery still doesn't seem necessary to me, I think axes will be better against Mali, since they have Skirmishers. Regular archers get killed easily by skirmishers, so we'll need something better. Where did the scout come from?

Copper in the initial big fat cross rocks! Hopefully the map maker hasn't balanced out our starting position with a small crappy continent.

The landbridge in the west is interesting, I think it'll be worth it getting an axe on there, exploring as far out as possible to check if it leads anywhere. We have a great capital city, and it will be important to prevent our resources to be pillaged. The west can be easily blocked by a single axe in a forest, or potentially a city on a hill with archers, if we can find a good hill. There are some nice mountains making our defence easier.

Any proposed city sites already? 4S1E of London seems decent, it has access to gold, rice a lot of forests (they're forests, not jungles, right?) and copper (shared with London). It's also on a hill. It will need a monument to function though, so it might have to wait. It could be our third or forth city.

@greatbeyond: Nice first turnset, and I like your report!

@Culdeus: War Weariness in AW is exactly the same as in a normal game, so we only get it when we fight someone. However the total amount of War Weariness we get is halved. So it'll probably be bad, but not as bad as last game. Especially not if we're alone

@Blubmuz: If we can get the Oracle for Code of Laws, that'd be great. Getting Civil Service would be even better, but might be too hard, and too risky (although Gold + Copper are strong tiles, perfect for a slingshot). No archery saves a couple of turns, and isn't meditation cheaper than polytheism?
I count 10 forests in the city I proposed, that'd be enough to chop a wonder (or some workers/settlers).

Dutchfire, please read CAREFULLY my # 69 and 70!!!

Yes, medi is about 1-2 turns cheaper, we can vary my path.
I usually research poly for literature, but this can be delayed.

If we can follow successfully this strategy, i think math-constuction comes next.

I can bet my underpants that we are at least 3 on this continent: it seems wide, with a number of rivers and mountains.

As i said, i'd like to try a CS sling, but it's always risky.
Anyway we can see from next TS if and how many other civs are on this continent.

edit after dutch #74 + 75
alright, finally
S/SE of London it's mainly jungle, but before to talk about a city site i think we MUST know where horses are, if any.
I think our 2 archers can be sent NE and SE to further scout and reveal those areas.
and the axe can be kept fot additional - and active - protection of our borders, eventually in pair with the medic1 warrior.

BTW which tool do you use to "erase" your text

Especially not if we're alone

Click to expand...

? OK, now i've seen the code, not the tool.

Usually my research path for the CS sling is: wheel-pottery-writing if with floodplains + gold or gems or AH-writing if i got livestock: the first is preferable, the important is the research.
build worker-warrior probably something else break at s.3 for a settler
then Alpha if i have contact with enough civs, especially if one of them is MM.
then math, trade the hell, priest if anyone has it/would trade it and CoL.
The goal is to reach CoL before the safe date (which sometimes is not safe) while building the Oracle, possibly in city 2.

I don't think it's possible in this game to have all those researched before 1000 BC, probably 700BC, too late even for Prince.

I've edited one of the reserved posts @ p.1 with the links to the TS reports.... comments appreciated.

Okay, that changes things, I'll update my posts

Posts updated.


I think it will be very important to get a few border cities, on hills, with walls, where the fighting will take place, and other cities with develop tiles that will produce our units and give our commerce.

I am just not seeing a great second city site right now. There isn't really a no brainer one out there. 1S of the incense might serve as a quasi choke point and has rice+gold and later spices. Not sure on it's production content.

culdeus said:

I am just not seeing a great second city site right now. 1S of the incense

Click to expand...

incense?
anyway, youre right nothing particularly exciting.

I don't see any really juicy second city spots either at the moment.

Here's what I would do on the next turnset:

1. Switch research to Ag. More food = more whips!
2. Mine the copper first while researching Ag (Hammers before roads!)
3. IF the copper doesn't hook after it's mined, road it to the city, else goto 4.
4. Farm the river bananas
5. Farm the river dye while researching AH

@Blubmuz: You make strikethrough text by using the tag, like this There's no button to do it.

EDIT: I also think that we should stop editing posts to add new information. We've had issues with this in the past. new information gets missed because people don't scroll back up and check old posts for new data. We don't have a limit on posts and we're making an index for turnset posts, so I see no reason not to just make a new post if you have something new to say.

Merum, 2 holes in your list:
first, delete the "IF".
i made lots of test it MUST be roaded!
second, to farm something we need the tech, and surely i prioritize AH.

but, since it will not be on line before the copper is mined and ROADED, and i don't like to waste a single worker turn, let's road the gold, the copper it's not workable until size 4, we must push our research.

and archery is almost mandatory, if we wanna have cheap and powerful units to scout and protect.

have carefully read my #69 and 70? IMHO they are the key to success.

Edit:
you're right about editing, from now on i'll edit my posts only if are the last in thread.

(exception)
thanks tor the strike thing, you confirmed what i discovered.

BLubmuz said:

incense?
anyway, youre right nothing particularly exciting.

Click to expand...

Sorry, what game was it with incense I got confused with? I meant spices.