SGOTM 11 - Who Dat?

I'd say Delhi is a must, since it will be producing buildings mainly, and can use the higher happycap. And of course, we want that monastary sooner rather than later.
Since we can pop borders with artists, I don't think we actually want to build more than that one missonary for now. Bombay is probably better used to up the worker count after that.
We also want to have some cities clear of religions in case Zara founds christianity, so we can catch it.

Go ahead with alpha<->mono+sailing. I agree there is no compelling reason to trade for IW just yet.

Gift PH? I guess that is not a bad idea at all.

Remember to revolt to org.rel along with slavery!

any other comments? If not, I'll play turns in around 12 hours from this post.

Turns 120-128

Got: Polytheism, Pottery, Fishing, Monotheism, Sailing

Conf spread to Aksum
Zara sent a settler towards our lands, but he turned back when our borders popped in Bombay to seal the gap. I think he's headed over to the islands, but hasn't settled a city yet.

Turn 128: Met Saladin, who is the founder of Hindiusm. We are immediately his worst enemy.

Both Sally and Justin have 5 cities, like us. Zara has 3.

Zara is now teching Horseback Riding - I didn't gift him PH, so he's being really quite useless.

I stopped here because the trade situation is becoming critical. It's the time to evaluate strategic gifting for diplo points and potential AI tech assistance.

Also, do we want to start assigning Espionage to Sally?

Vijay will complete a WB next turn, so we need to decide which way to send that (not so critical to explore West now that we've met Sally).

Bombay is putting some hammers into a Library while growing back to size 4, then should probably build/whip workers.

Delhi: need to monitor the workers replacing farms with cottages, and attempt to get growth in 5 turns with all farms replaced by that turn. We will complete HGardens in around 23 turns (assuming Confu) unless we chop into it - we might want to whip a couple of settlers about 5 turns before it's due, to settle the turn before it's built, so that we get maximum population increase from this Wonder.

We're running Rep/Caste/Org.rel

A major limitation will be hammers to produce Libraries/Unis for Oxford. We should start thinking about this now.

PRODUCTION


DIPLO


TECH TRADES


TURN LOG

Interesting development. My thoughts:

-If Sal+Justin are on the same landmass, we may have a hard time getting Justin into our religious block. If not, we should probably send him missionaries soon to make Sal the common enemy. Alternatively, we could try to catch hinduism and use that as the world religion?

-I am not sure we can do anything to make the current known AI go on specific paths. Perhaps we should chop out that HG soon and do a round of math trading/gifting (getting IW+Monarchy in the process).

-We could gift Saladin at least alphabet, and maybe meditation+mono, which should make him less hostile.

-Gifting Justin mono for cheap points seem to be reasonable too, or maybe it is best to include it in a monarchy deal.

-We should probably look to found a 6th city soon, which will probably need to build granary-library-university. Perhaps Bombay worker-settler (size4), whipping 2 pop on the settler.

-Agree on other build plans

-It would be nice to know if Sal holds any of our required resources, which could make him our first war target. Of course, it may show up in the trade screen anyway. We also want to check the east islands for resources so that Zara doesn't get there first.

Also, do we want to start assigning Espionage to Sally?

Click to expand...

Might be a good idea, if we make sure to keep just enough on Zara to see his research. He may still go down a useful path.

If Sally has resources he hasn't hooked them up yet.

All three can only trade us cows (except Zara who is trading us clams).

Maybe he doesn't have Calendar yet?

By the way, I've updated the first page stickies. Is it me or do we have all the Theocrats as neighbours? If I were to guess, I'd say that the other two, Isabella and Ramesses, are out there as well. Sounds like a mapmaker wants us to have a tough time with diplo ...

Then again, we can always conquer two neighbours if we want to resolve the diplomatic tension that way. Shared mutual struggle is worth diplo points too

We can probably get Sally to declare on us, if we keep a low power score and don't do anything to appease him. Sally's an aggressive bastard.

We have fairly low production capacity, so a war would be a significant diversion of hammers which we need for other things. Then the maintennance of extra cities would further cut our tech rate.

We definately don't want a war before we complete Oxford.

By the way, I've updated the first page stickies. Is it me or do we have all the Theocrats as neighbours? If I were to guess, I'd say that the other two, Isabella and Ramesses, are out there as well. Sounds like a mapmaker wants us to have a tough time with diplo ...

Click to expand...

If they all love theocracy, then it should be pretty easy to get a lovefest going At least between those we can unite under the same religious banner.

@dredd, I think you can continue a bit. We seem to be pretty much in agreement about the immediate future.

I'll be gone for ~10 days. Anyone who are available to play should speak up. We don't have much time to wait for people who are "up" any more with the low activity.

OK, I'll play some more.

I'll send the first WB west to scout Justin/Sally. The next one East. A third one North (but that's unlikely to be this turnset).

With a bit of chopping, we can get HGardens in around 15 turns. I would like to have settled 2 more cities by then, to maximise the +2 pop bonus (and whipping those settlers in Vijay and Bombay will be nearly free a few turns before HG ).

One city will be the horse/fish/incense city (or could be a high-production "filler" city with 3+ hills?). The other city is one from the following screen shot:



What does everyone think? I like "alternate site" because it doesn't waste a FP and has plenty of grassland for farming. We can perhaps get the crabs with a city on the continent to the West.

Trades:
Gift Saladin at least alphabet and meditation. plus mono if he isn't +4
Can trade with Justin: Monarchy for COL + Mono. I'm not particularly happy trading away COL... I think we should wait till we complete HG and trade maths in stead.

gah I had a long post but firefox crashed. I'll try to recreate it.

800bc-440bc

We've completed currency and HGardens. Delhi is Confucian and is a nice-looking cottaged capital (delhi.jpg). Need to watch the governor in Delhi - he likes assigning scientist specialists! Confucianism has spread to all of Zara's mainland cities but no more of ours.

We are in slavery and probably want to whip some granaries around the place (cities.jpg). I made an executive decision on city placement: one high-production city (copper/hills/sharing corn), and the "alternate" site above.

Sent a workboat west, but was blocked by Toku (west.jpg).

Did I mention that we've met some friends! (religions.jpg, foreign.jpg, techs.jpg). Izzy is to the East, the rest are to the West. I gifted something to Toku as soon as I saw him, but I've not traded with the rest. We have lots of options! Toku is rexxing like mad! The diplo game isn't my strong suit, so I'll leave it to others to analyze this messy situation.

I started teching CS, but Aesth-Lit is the other option.

turn log:


delhi.jpg, cities.jpg, west.jpg, foreign.jpg, religions.jpg, techs.jpg

Cool stuff. Sorry to be so flaky the past few weeks but it's going to continue - I've had another trip for business yesterday and am gone on holiday two weeks starting on Friday. I'll keep up to date if I can.

Haven't heard back from WithTea lately ...

Hi guys, I'm back. Unlike most people

I guess I'll just pick up the save and post a plan soon.

Overall plan

-Try to catch hindusim and side with the hindu block for future votes. We have many cities with no religion, and we can quickly plant a city on the arabian landmass (with crab too). It should be doable. Once we catch it, spread to Delhi ASAP. Confu is a lost cause, and Zara is likely to get to theology first.

-Work towards pumping up the capital. MC (need engineer points before Bombay pops GPro, and forge means 1 more cottage)->CS->Lit->Edu. Alternatively, we delay lit and hope to trade for it instead. Delhi builds happy first, science multipliers next.

-Alternate slavery/caste to whip granaries and other important builds but otherwise run merchants/scientists in all auxillary cities over non-premium tiles.

-Theocracy is going to be important to get +diplo.

Details

-Bulb Philo immediately. We cannot risk someone else getting there first, and we can use the extra temple in Delhi quickly.

-Sell math to Sal for IW+gold. Math is no longer worth keeping, and iron will presumably add production somewhere.

-Sell mono to Justin+Toku for 110+40.

-Beg gold from Zara.

-Use gold pile to research MC+CS as soon as humanly possible.

-Trade for Theology when Zara finishes it so we can get AP in hinduism.

-Delhi: temple->temple->forge->monastary x2. Granary not really needed since we are operating at the cap and not whipping.

-GPfarm: stick with granary-lighthouse-library-NEpic(if ready)

-Finish granaries everywhere else asap, using whips liberally.

-Chop settler in Agra (production), build galley in Vijay -> settle crab city in arabia.

-Build 3-4 more workers, and enough workboats to work all seafood elsewhere after granaries.

Fluro, sounds like you have a good handle on things.

I'll take the turnset after yours if no one else wants it. I should have time during the week.

cas

Looks pretty good. Is it better to do CS then MC so that we can utilise beurocracy sooner? Right now most of our beakers are coming from the capital, so beuro will be a huge boost, and should shave a few turns off the CS/MC combo.

It might. I am not sure how much the gold+rep specs can carry through at first. If Bureau can be got at 100%, then it is surely better. The problem is that Bombay is going to pop a GPro in 33 turns, so we need the forge done in some 20-25 turns to get the engineer instead.
I am willing to gamble on CS first though, it is obviously a higher priority all else considered. We will probably have to whip the forge though.

Hi all, checking in again. Switching to Hinduism looks good - maybe we can make Isabella the world's whipping dog. I'm surprised the AI hasn't expanded more - I guess the land isn't that good.

Fluro, you mentioned getting the AP in Hinduism. I wasn't sure what you meant - does this mean trading around Theology so that the others build it for us? Building it ourselves? Converting Zara to Hinduism? Otherwise the plan looks fine, and I've been out of the loop so I don't have much to contribute until I catch up.

One idea might be to plant a city next to Toku, absorb Hinduism, build missionaries out of that city to spread Hinduism to our mainland cities, and then gift that city back to Toku. We could get some key diplo points that let us open borders with him, which makes him happier, which enables more trading, etc. - a bit of a positive feedback loop. I recall a Deity University game that required that level of appeasement.

Fluro, you mentioned getting the AP in Hinduism. I wasn't sure what you meant - does this mean trading around Theology so that the others build it for us? Building it ourselves? Converting Zara to Hinduism? Otherwise the plan looks fine, and I've been out of the loop so I don't have much to contribute until I catch up.

One idea might be to plant a city next to Toku, absorb Hinduism, build missionaries out of that city to spread Hinduism to our mainland cities, and then gift that city back to Toku. We could get some key diplo points that let us open borders with him, which makes him happier, which enables more trading, etc. - a bit of a positive feedback loop. I recall a Deity University game that required that level of appeasement.

Click to expand...

I think there would be a reasonable chance to get our hindu allies to build it before Zara if we trade it around immediately. We can of course build it ourselves too, although it may be impractical.

As for Toku, I don't see any reason to cater to him in particular. If we share religion and gift a few techs, he will be a happy camper anyway. He is unlikely to be the most useful trader of the bunch anyway .

One thing we may end up doing is building the UN in a city that can be gifted to a small AI, That is if we are:
-The biggest civ ourselves
-Up against an opponent that would vote for us
-Not able to win the vote otherwise

Yet another reason that getting the GE is so vital.

Going to play now.. See you back in a bit.

Played until 35BC

Turnset report

No huge suprises, but a few things to note.

Status

-1st off, we now know of one of our target resources, which is ivory. There are two sources on the small island east of the mainland, where Zaras christian holy city now stands. And Justinian has two as well. He will not trade right now, but...

-We have caught hinduism, and just spread it to Delhi. The first try failed , so clamtown has been whipped down a few times. We now have the option of practically insta-friendlying Saladin+Justinian by switching to hinduism+theocracy.

-The crab town got settled long before we could get there, so I planted a city on the sugar island instead, which is just a lone island after all. We survived a barb galley attack up there, but no more will spawn now.

-Another settler is due soon, destined for the fish/horse/incense site. Our projected moai site has been blocked by Saladin settling on the south tundra peninsula. Zara has settled on the southern silver peninsula, so we are seriously running out of space.

-Isabella is just beyond Zara to the east, so our exploration is blocked that way. The galley used to transport the settler is on the way to explore the north coast of the western continent.

-We teched CS->MC. I just whipped a forge in Delhi. It needs to run two specs to overtake Bombay on GPs. So we are running an engineer+scientist. 6T to pop it, so we will have to cross our fingers on this one.

-One of the hindus (forgot which) have aesthetics. Presumably easily tradable when they go friendly, so I set research to paper at 0% for now. Paper->Edu seems best now, possibly pause to snag music when we can trade for literature.

-Building forges whereever nothing else is needed. We are gearing up to build the universities now. Doing well on worker turns now.

Handing the torch over to cas now. Y'all should take a look at the world as we know it now.

Various screenies attached.