SGOTM 12 - Plastic Ducks

Still not home... however from what I recall...

1. Why do we absolutely need to take 6 cities from Churchill? We can just gift a crap city to DG, retake the trojan city after it has grown to size 2 and gift it to Church, no? [needs actual testing].
SP is useful but it's slightly out of our way right now. We'll be massing EP quite easily and if we spread Confu we can accumulate enough EPs in 10~15 turns to steal either one.
I love Kremlin but I'd like to delay Scientific Method as much as possible to get more gpp.

I think steal SP-Lib-AL-SM-Communism would be superior to SM-steal Communism-Lib-AL. Point is to waste less research and use our EP and the great trojan city+shrine.

2. Roosevelt without a doubt after going through Mao. We can leave him his crap city in the north. Roose doesn't have MoM yet iIrc but I suppose anytime in the next 10 turns he might get it. We can hit Churchill after Airships or even with Infantry

3. Yes some catas and a few stack defenders sounds good. Beijing can supply reinforcement catapults as it is really close by.

4. Sure.

5. Moscow ok
SP right as well.
spies - yup
Shanghai: in most cases yes. Swap tiles to gain 1 turn of growth when possible.
Novos absolutely. Is it working a 2F2C tile now? I thought I looked for that.
New island: need to check, I can't remember.

BTW, Gadwin PrintScreen released a new version on Oct 14th that's supposed to work better with Windows 7. Maybe it works with civ4 now?

Long awaited report.

As I've already posted the log, I won't bother re-posting that.


The timing was off in the game compared to the test game a bit. As I said, I was a bit too tired and distracted so I made some mistakes (Novos forgot to switch tiles losing some commerce there). I delayed the settlers from Ore and had Smo build a settler instead of Moscow to make up for the slow taking of Lyons.

Only Churchill has more power now and barely at that. If Roosie is targetting us, we'll have a field day against his SoD

Universities should be ready to whip in 3 turns so in 4 turns we can start on Oxford. With good overflow Oxford can be built in 1 turn but it might make more sense to do it in 2 turns.

1. Why do we absolutely need to take 6 cities from Churchill? We can just gift a crap city to DG, retake the trojan city after it has grown to size 2 and gift it to Church, no? [needs actual testing].
SP is useful but it's slightly out of our way right now. We'll be massing EP quite easily and if we spread Confu we can accumulate enough EPs in 10~15 turns to steal either one.
I love Kremlin but I'd like to delay Scientific Method as much as possible to get more gpp.

I think steal SP-Lib-AL-SM-Communism would be superior to SM-steal Communism-Lib-AL. Point is to waste less research and use our EP and the great trojan city+shrine.

Click to expand...

When AI has more than 3 cities, he only accept cities which are adjacent to their culture border. If we don't shrink Churchill's empire to 3 cities, then the only way that he is willing to accept the Trojan city is to gift city chains from Xian to Trojan.

I did not want to finish SM before AL, definitely try to lib AL 1st. Factories in those low productive cities can be delayed until Kremlin is available.

BTW, Gadwin PrintScreen released a new version on Oct 14th that's supposed to work better with Windows 7. Maybe it works with civ4 now?

Click to expand...

Nah, civ4 is the only one it does not work.

Ah, I see. Very interesting little known fact.

Will update test game today and run a few tests.

I've just completed installation of civ4 on my laptop (yay!).

... Gadwin pro 4.6 works with civ4 on my windows 7... but then I upgraded to 3.19 and it doesn't work!

Haha... got it working again:

-changed compatibility settings:

Civ4 and Gadwin: run under XP SP 3 and as Administrator.

It works for window mode, does it work on full screen mode?

Worker micro is very tedious in this stage of the game. You don't need to tell it in very detail, rough direction is enough. However I know it's good for updating the test game, I can read it quickly in my mind without running the tests, although might be off sometimes.

Do we want to OB with Churchill? like Roosevelt, he probably won't be ready for a long time as our power increases fast. He have gotten the +2 resource trade, Music is probably enough to bring +2 fair trade, at most plus Compass. Also we can adjust the resource trade a little bit.

We also can consider Maio now, either Kra or Yaku. The way to build it is using overflow from some buildings and worker/settler. Kra could be a better choice since it has less whipping angers.

It worked on full screen mode for me.

Worker micro is indeed tedious! At this point I agree we can probably just say the general direction.

Churchill: I see no reason not to gift him Music, it's pretty dead end and might make him waste hammers on Sistine.

What is Maio??? I can't figure out the acronym.

edit: lol, figured it out - it's Maoi statues

Test game...

It's really not accurate at all, and I mean, way off! Didn't have the time to make everything match unfortunately.

Strangely, it does not work in my computer, it always snap the desktop.

No need of accurate test game, tile management is not very important. However I do care about the city build.

Big lines...

Moscow: CM's>Oxford>Taoist Monastery>CM's
SP: 2 Catas, Stable>~4 WEs>HAs>Market when needed.
Nov: spy, harbor, a few cheap archers,
Rostov: whip Uni, cheap archers
Yaro: whip Forge, harbor, galley to move some CMs
Yek: whip Uni, settler, market
Yak: run Engineer while growing in 2, whip uni in 3, market
Vlad: whip Forge, Market
Smo: Spy, cheap Archers, lib to whip
Ore: whip Uni, Market
Kras: whip forge into Moai, lib/Coliseum into Moai, CMona into Moai etc...
Rh: whip CH ASAP, Forge, takes banana and focus on food
Kha: whip CH ASAP, spy, Forge
Bry: whip CH, Forge
Tv': whip CH, spy, Forge
Tours: whip CH, Forge
Novos: whip CH, Forge (whip garrison as necessary) - takes 2F3C tiles
Mag: whip CH, Forge
Xian: whip CH, Forge
Mur: CH, wb whip(s)
Nanjing: whip CH, Forge
Irk: LH>CH>Forge
Chita: CH>Forge
Shanghai: focus hammers, food to grow faster when warranted
Beijing: barracks, catapults
Samara: Gran>CH>Forge (sheep, copper, spices)
Lyons: CH, Forge

Others: G2 unloads settler goes back home to pick up some CMs; G1 can take a settler for one of the 3 city spots

Military: take Paris next turn, sacrifice 1 catapult if odds are not good enough. Orleans next.
Move on to Mao afterwards.

Techs: trade for HBR from Roose next turn (Drama, or else Music)
gift Music and /or Compass to Church, OB.
acquire Optics/Engineering if available
acquire Feudalism when enough cheap archers are built
resources: update with Churchill in 2 turns
Cancel marble to Roose if MoM goes.

Steal Nationalism from DG at max discount (~1100 EP) and focus on Mao afterwards. [now that I think of it, it would be convenient to get Constitution from Roose as well... any luck to get it in a peace deal from him?]

Once Oxford is in, 100% PP then 0% on Liberalism.

Workers: preferential farm+spread irrigation
workshop if no irrigation possible, GH: mine, PH: windmill(?)

I'll run a few tests to get a general idea.

kossin said:

Big lines...

Moscow: CM's>Oxford>Taoist Monastery>CM's
SP: 2 Catas, Stable>~4 WEs>HAs>Market when needed.
Nov: spy, harbor, a few cheap archers,
Rostov: whip Uni, cheap archers
Yaro: whip Forge, harbor, galley to move some CMs

galley? Smo is a closer place.

Yek: whip Uni, settler, market
Yak: run Engineer while growing in 2, whip uni in 3, market

"run Engineer while growing in 2, whip uni in 3," are you sure?

Vlad: whip Forge, Market
Smo: Spy, cheap Archers, lib to whip
Ore: whip Uni, Market
Kras: whip forge into Moai, lib/Coliseum into Moai, CMona into Moai etc...
Rh: whip CH ASAP, Forge, takes banana and focus on food

Tile exchange seems needed between Rh and Yours.

Kha: whip CH ASAP, spy, Forge
Bry: whip CH, Forge
Tv': whip CH, spy, Forge
Tours: whip CH, Forge
Novos: whip CH, Forge (whip garrison as necessary) - takes 2F3C tiles
Mag: whip CH, Forge
Xian: whip CH, Forge
Mur: CH, wb whip(s)

A couple of worker are needed for the island, the 1st WB for the new city could be chopped (the shared forest with Samara)

Nanjing: whip CH, Forge
Irk: LH>CH>Forge
Chita: CH>Forge
Shanghai: focus hammers, food to grow faster when warranted
Beijing: barracks, catapults

2 pop whip of cata, overflow to archer.

Samara: Gran>CH>Forge (sheep, copper, spices)
Lyons: CH, Forge

Others: G2 unloads settler goes back home to pick up some CMs; G1 can take a settler for one of the 3 city spots

Military: take Paris next turn, sacrifice 1 catapult if odds are not good enough. Orleans next.

The SOD is seriously wounded, rest 1 turn and then take Paris without sacrificing cat.

Move on to Mao afterwards.

How many units are you going to save for Churchill's possible invasion?

Techs: trade for HBR from Roose next turn (Drama, or else Music)
gift Music and /or Compass to Church, OB.
acquire Optics/Engineering if available
acquire Feudalism when enough cheap archers are built
resources: update with Churchill in 2 turns
Cancel marble to Roose if MoM goes.

Steal Nationalism from DG at max discount (~1100 EP) and focus on Mao afterwards. [now that I think of it, it would be convenient to get Constitution from Roose as well... any luck to get it in a peace deal from him?]

Cons is probably too expensive, the best tech I could expect is Eng like. Make sure sending all spies in the same time.

Once Oxford is in, 100% PP then 0% on Liberalism.

Cons once Nat stolen

Workers: preferential farm+spread irrigation
workshop if no irrigation possible, GH: mine, PH: windmill(?)

This looks too general. Maybe something like:

Moscow -- the worker does 7 turns of watermill on the riverside farm and SF on desert tile

Kha -- 2 workers go toward Paris (SF on the way) and then improve the 2 incense tile. 3 workers goes to 3 fallout tiles SF.


I'll run a few tests to get a general idea.

Click to expand...

Suggestions in Bold.

Big lines meant as in "this is what I think just by glancing over it in 5 mins"
I'll log in some testing today maybe before making a more appropriate plan.

Yaro: ok, galley from Smo makes more sense.

Yak: lol, I see, we need 50 hammers and 4 pops to whip. I'll find a way to get 50 hammers ASAP without stalling growth. That would include citizens for a few turns.

Tours/Rh: Yea, I'll swap farms/cottages. Tours as a great 1F4H tile available as well.

Mur: a worker sounds good, 2 is definitely not enough. There are 2 forests available for chopping 2 wb, I'll use both.

Beijing: catas 2 pop whips were my intention, OF into Archers makes sense.

Paris: hmm ok, will allow full bombardment.

Churchill: hate to say it but we need 2~3 catapults and about 8 maces... he'll show up with maybe 16~18 units. Anyway, we have 27 maces so it's not that big a number.

I ran a quick test and the culture discount in Trojan city went down really quick. Don't know why but I don't like it, we might have trouble stealing Nationalism if that's the case so I'll start spies right this turn to have them ready ASAP.

0% Const or research it? If we 0% it we can hope to get it from peace deal maybe.

Worker micro: yea I know. Just general as I said. I'll give more details. For instance, there's the pig by Orleans that will require improving also. Getting a few more resources will be good for SP and the other happy-challenged cities.

I thought about irrigating the Paris corn but all those cottages are almost Towns.

Yak: lol, I see, we need 50 hammers and 4 pops to whip. I'll find a way to get 50 hammers ASAP without stalling growth. That would include citizens for a few turns.

Click to expand...

Probably 5 pop whip is better.

Mur: a worker sounds good, 2 is definitely not enough. There are 2 forests available for chopping 2 wb, I'll use both.

Click to expand...

Chop 1 forest for WB, another 1 for Gra so that the new city can do 1 pop whip of Gra. IMO that island need 2 more workers.

Churchill: hate to say it but we need 2~3 catapults and about 8 maces

Click to expand...

No need to keep fixed units there, let the reinforcements take over the job.

0% Const or research it? If we 0% it we can hope to get it from peace deal maybe.

Click to expand...

0%, we can build some more libs and univs before going for full research, Cons is not necessary in short time.

I don't know whether AI considers the beakers already invested to the tech when giving tech for peace treaty. If so, then partially research Cons and we could twist it from Roosevelt.

I thought about irrigating the Paris corn but all those cottages are almost Towns.

Click to expand...

If only 1 cottage is on the way, then go for the wet Corn.

Didn't get time to play at all today, had a much more busy day than anticipated

Yak:
Growing to 10 pop is 6 turns, using Engineer and citizens we can get to 50H and 8 pop in 4 turns.
2 turns worth it or no...?

Island:
1 forest for granary makes lot of sense. Agree with at least 4 workers.

Churchill:
There are about 8~9 maces on their way to Nanjing, I guess they will take that job.

Constitution:
I'm pretty sure partial research reduces the value of techs for peace deals.

Paris, wet corn:
On one side we would have to bulldoze 3 hamlets (2 are almost villages).
On the other side there is a plain village (7 turns to town) or grass village (10 turns to town) to bulldoze.
I suppose the plains village can go to maximize food.

2 turn of earlier OU is worth 2* (12B + 2GPPS + number of villages * 1C (PP)) Engineer and citizen = 2H or 1H. Working on tile is 2F3C = 4H3C

The result depends on how many turns and citizen you need to hire.

Ok screw that, growing to 10 pop will be better.

I have a very little testing time now but tomorrow will be better. I expect to be able to play on Sunday if testing goes well tomorrow.

Moscow (CM, TMona to avoid losing overflow, Oxford) - City goal is to grow to 17~18 to start running an Engineer full time.
SP (2 Catas, Stable, ~4 WEs, HAs, market when necessary) take 3F1C to grow in 1
Nov (spy) on 2F1H1C (switch back tiles next turn)
Ros (archer>uni>more archers) fur to 3F1C (lose .25 less hammers)
Yaro (Forge>Harbor>Market)
Yek (Uni, 2whip settler in Uni then market)
Yak (grow to 10 to whip Uni)
Vlad (whip Forge when ready, Market next)
Smo (spy, 2-whip galley)
Ore (Uni, market)
Kras (whip forge to Moai, then other cheap buildings, add garrison as needed)
Rh (CH, Forge) add food
Kha (spy for 2-whip, CH, Forge)
Bry (whip CH, Forge, add in worker whip to time with Yek settler)
Tv (spy for 2hip, CH, Forge)
Tours (CH, Forge)
Novos(whip CH, Forge)
Mag (whip CH, Forge, worker for S island when galley available)
Xian (CH, Forge, walls if needed)
Mur (worker, 2whip, CH, Forge)
Nanjing (CH, Forge) takes Dye from Shanghai, needs ~3 workers really quick
Irk (LH, CH, Forge)
Chita (CH, Forge)
Shanghai (FB) hammers
Beijing (archer, barracks, 2-whip catapults into Archers)
Samara (whip gran, CH, Forge, setter if possible)
Lyons (culture, CH, Forge), will require 1 archer garrison

Military: rest 1 turn then take Paris (send catapults to bombard Orleans ASAP). Keep 2 maces near the Axe+Spear party of Churchill around Shanghai
Move on to Mao next. Reinforcements go to Xian to meet Churchill

Other: trade for Optics/Engineering if available.

Workers:
Moscow send worker south to help Chita/Tv/Irk, SF+C along the way
SP 2 workers finish grass farm then 1 start heading to pig city, SF+C along the way if possible other heads to Kha/Tv area to help out
Kha 3 workers head to Paris SF+C along the way, start clearing up fallout. Irrigation is at the cost of 3 maturing cottages, not a good alternative. 2 workers stick around, 1 SF 2E Chita+I, 1 SF towards Tv'
Rh: 2 workers mine gem, 1 to 1N Xian SF+C then NW SF. gem workers join the first worker 2 turns later
Shanghai: 4 workers to Nanjing, SF+irrigate to Rice. Send 2 back to SF+irrigate once Nanjing is irrigated
Pig city: after pig pasture, get farms going. City can borrow one sugar.
Samara: 2 worker finish sheep, 2 1S road then to new city forest chop for wb and chop for granary. Other workers: improve at least 1 spice, SF city spots and available resources. New Mur worker goes to chop forest t172

In retrospect, I hate where I placed Mur. 1N would have been so much better. It was hard to tell without enough ahead scouting though.

Oxford should be done on t181.

Stealing Nationalism appears to be problematic with culture discount disappearing.

Will take a close look tonight.

First, I assume this is for ~10 turns

SP -- stable can be skipped as we won't build a lot of mounted units and they are for defense mainly.

Worker micro -- The big picture is that farms everywhere except watermill, priority is resources > riverside farm (can't build watermill) > watermills (RP is not too far way) > windmills on hills

Moscow -- I'd keep 2 workers around to do some pre-improvement and avoid spending turns on movement. The current worker can go to improve the PH for Smo. The riverside farm needs to be watermill once RP is available, the 2 farms needs to be workshops once Chemistry is available, we can also put a watermill on the desert tile, which is better than a specialist when Levee and Electricity are available.

SP does not need any more improvement in short time, can keep 1 worker there to do slow improvement himself. Others move while improve toward Smo and Pig city and then further south.

What job do you assign for the 2 workers in the Pig city next turn? Road on the Pig?

Mur new worker? goes to SF the copper site?

To chain irrigate the Corn in Paris, we only need to go through 1 plain cottage adjacent to the Rice, it also enables farms on fallout tiles. I think it's worthy. Edit: never mind, the city center of Lyons does not allow chain irrigation.

You may go ahead when you feel ready.