SGOTM 05 - Geezers

Turn 0 (1085 AD)

• Even though I told Sam I would work the iron, I decide to leave Old Sarai as is for now as it will grow pop in three turns (iron would stagnate it).
• Corinth - move a citizen to a food tile to grow one to allow quicker whip.
• Athens - work copper and horses to speed CH.

IBT

• Sally chariot comes out of Kufah, leaving one archer.
• Qin galley with settler appears near Corinth. I assume he is heading towards silver island.
• Qin HA razes iron mine near Corinth.

Turn 1 (1100 AD)

• Decide to kill HA near Corinth with Axes as he will pillage cottages near Corinth before Keshiks arrive. Lose 1 axe doing so.
• Workers begin rebuilding iron mine.
• Kill Sally chariot near Kufah with Axe. Decide to wait to attack Kufah in case the RNG are especially cruel (there are two swords at 26% vs. the archer, so maybe they both can lose).
• Moving wounded Keshik near Kufah back to Ning-tsai.
• Pick of cat near Athens to move to Corinth.
• Unhappiness is up in cities, need to move research to 20%. Alpha getting father away.

IBT

• Togu sends an escorted settler out from Kajoshima.

Turn 2 (1106 AD)

• Move cat near Ning-tsai towards Kufah just to be sure.
• Workers move to build plantation on Dyes near Ning.
• Whip CH in Athens, MM remaining citizens to grow pop back.

IBT

• Qin galley with settler is heading towards silver.
• Qin caravel appears near Corinth.
• Qin caravel near Karakorum.

Turn 3 (1112 AD)

• Beshbalik Granary -> CH
• Decide to sink Qin galley with settler. Attack with galley at 50% and win (but, the RNG will get even later).
• Stack galleys near Corinth against caravel (the wounded galley that killed the settler will not be able to run away).
• Lose one sword capturing and razing Kufah. I decide we can't afford it, can always rebuild later.
• I decide we might want peace with Sally even though we did not keep the city to block him from our island. My thinking is we let him rebuild there and take it later, saves us a settler.
• Make peace with Sally for Alpha and Monotheism. Start Metal Casting.
• Old Sarai grows, now we work the iron as Sam suggested.
• Togu offers peace for CoL, decide that is too high.

IBT

• Qin caravel sinks a galley.
• Qin caravel near Karakorum heads S towards Turfan clams.
• Barb warrior shows there are still 1 sword and 4 axes in Phoenician. I wonder if the warrior will take them on?
• Togu settles a new city to SE of Corinth.

Turn 4 (1118 AD)

• Sink wounded caravel with galley.
• MM Corinth for hammers.
• Move three Keshiks towards Togu's new city.

IBT

• Yep, barb warrior dies attacking a stack of 5.
• Qin caravel turns back N away from Turfan.

Turn 5 (1124 AD)

• Raise Togu city of Nagasaki, but RNGs get me. Lose one Keshik at 88% odds.

IBT

• Another Qin caravel appears, this one moves directly towards clams.

Turn 6 (1130 AD)

• Two Keshiks head back towards Corinth (we are at 2 gpt supply cost, want them in our borders).
• Qin caravel near clams means we can't work it, therefore Turfan is starving. Whip its CH for 2 rather than starve.
• Unhappiness is growing, need to drop research to 20%.

Turn 7 (1136 AD)

• Two kechiks are home, no more supply cost.
• Whip CH in Corinth for 2 pop.
• Notice a longbow in Qin's city of Xian.

IBT

• Taoism spreads to our lands.

Turn 8 (1142 AD)

• I consider founding silver city but decide that's a bad idea. Where the settler is currently sited (which I think is the best spot), it will have crap in its nine-tile box (it needs to expand to get the silver or the fish). However, there is poor production so it will take a while to build something with culture. So, I think we need to wait until a missionary can be sent from Corinth (which won't be long now).
• Moving galley from main island to Corinth to eventually help shuttle missionaries, etc.

Turn 9 (1148 AD)

• Dyes near Ning-tsai are done, move citizen to work them. Research 40%.

IBT

• Cyrus Galley with 2 HA's appears near Corinth.

Turn 10 (1154 AD)

• Move a worker into Corinth. We've done most of the useful improvements possible by Corinth, figure we should send a worker with the missionary to silver city. No point in founding it if we can't actually mine the silver.
• Athens pop grows, mm for gold.

State of affairs at this point:

• We need to decide if we should try to sink Cyrus' galley or let them land. Our galley with combat 2 should have good odds, and we probably will lose a unit killing them on the ground. If Cyrus' galley bypasses Corinth and heads for Athens, then we definitely need to sink it or we may lose Athens.
• I think Athens went back to building a library after the CH. However, we need to get a spear or two there in case someone decide to invade that island. Maybe the galley heading towards Athens from the mainland can go back and get a spear or two. And maybe Athens should take a time out from the library construction and build a spear as well.
• In an earlier post, markh suggested a temple in Corinth to speed GP. However as Athens has Henge, it is already building a GP. We might want to put a temple in Athens instead to speed it up.
• Qin seems to be going caravel crazy. I think we are going to have trouble controlling the seas, and I am reluctant to build lots of galleys trying. We need to focus on ground troops. However, if Qin cuts off our sea lanes to bring troops over, this would be bad. Peace with Qin would be a good thing, but at the moment he is not interested.
• I believe our first missionary is done next turn. I would send it and the worker to silver island, then found that city. It will be a cash drain for 30 turns until it expands, but then it will be good.
• Research is -3 at 40%. We will have metal in 14 turns. Also, the barbs are about 20% done Machinery. The barbs also have almost finished Monarchy. Once they do, we should switch to Hereditary. Also, with monarchy done, going to knights instead of maces might be the better play.

Roster:

Sam - on deck
drhirsch - skipped due to virus hunting
Harbourboy - skip from 11 Sep to 4 October
AgedOne
markh - Just played
The-Hawk
Pariah - UP
[/QUOTE]

An interesting turnset The-Hawk. Sally seems to have got a good peace deal. I hope we didn't help Sally's research too much.

At present there doesn't seem much we can do about Qin other than put up with him roaming the seas. I think we will need to keep pumping out the galleys though or else Cyrus and Qin between them will wipe them out. I notice that Cyrus has compass so it's quite possible that he will start wandering round with caravels if his galleys get sunk.

To that end I would be inclined to wait and see what Cyrus does with his galley. With luck he'll follow Qin's winning tactics, land the HAs and attack Corinth.

Let's get the bananas connected by Karakorum soonest. That gives us another to balance the in Karakorum and Corinth. Once we have the silver online we might even have a nice cushion against WW.

At present we seem to be drifting in terms of what to do. Whilst I think we would like to be at peace with everyone except Toku, that doesn't look as though it's going to happen anytime soon.

Now that we have peace with Sally I think we need to start moving some troops from the home island. Certainly the sword and cat if nothing else. We also need some more military as we're slowly falling in numbers and power. It's a moot point whether we need CHs in Ning-hsia & Beshbalik. The Ch will only save us 3 . I'm making the assumption that Sally won't redeclare and also that neither Cyrus or Qin learn Astro in the near future. We need to leave a reasonable force at Corinth to fend off Cyrus & Qin but I think we should get a force together to attack Kagoshima. I think we'll probably need to raze it but see below. After Kagoshima we should head for Osaka. Both these cities will be hard work as they both have walls.

We're playing vanilla but it's just occurred to me that we have'nt been alternating the science slider to avoid losing fractional science values. Perhaps we should run the slider at 0% for a while and then at 100% e.g. MC is 6 turns @ 100%. An advantage is that the extra will help pay for the extra military that we need to attack Toku.

I don't claim that my ideas, with the exception of connecting the bananas, are the best but they're the best I can come up with. I'll be delighted if someone else has better ideas.

Sam_Yeager said:

Sally seems to have got a good peace deal. I hope we didn't help Sally's research too much.

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Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear? Sally gave us Alpha and Mono for peace. I took peace to jump our research, carved a ton of turns off Alpha (Mono was a throw-in, tried to get Curracncy or Monarchy but he wouldn't part with them). We can always redeclare in 10 turns when he resettles.

Sam_Yeager said:

Let's get the bananas connected by Karakorum soonest. That gives us another to balance the in Karakorum and Corinth. Once we have the silver online we might even have a nice cushion against WW. .

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Don't bananas give health not smilies? I didn't think we had a health problem, so I concentrated on dyes for commerce.

Sam_Yeager said:

Now that we have peace with Sally I think we need to start moving some troops from the home island. Certainly the sword and cat if nothing else. We also need some more military as we're slowly falling in numbers and power. It's a moot point whether we need CHs in Ning-hsia & Beshbalik. The Ch will only save us 3 . I'm making the assumption that Sally won't redeclare and also that neither Cyrus or Qin learn Astro in the near future. We need to leave a reasonable force at Corinth to fend off Cyrus & Qin but I think we should get a force together to attack Kagoshima. I think we'll probably need to raze it but see below. After Kagoshima we should head for Osaka. Both these cities will be hard work as they both have walls.

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Yes, I agree with all of this. CH in the low maint cities is not a bad idea though, we will need them eventually. Since we are going for Dom, our number of cities will grow (I hope) which increase maint in all cities. I build CH in every city but the capital in my Dom attempts. Only question is when, they may not be a high priority yet.

Sam_Yeager said:

We're playing vanilla but it's just occurred to me that we have'nt been alternating the science slider to avoid losing fractional science values. Perhaps we should run the slider at 0% for a while and then at 100% e.g. MC is 6 turns @ 100%. An advantage is that the extra will help pay for the extra military that we need to attack Toku.

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I seem to recall this got fixed in a patch, but I'm not sure. I'm never sure, so I play the 100%/0% bit in my SP games.

The-Hawk said:

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear? Sally gave us Alpha and Mono for peace.

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I obviously misread that.

The-Hawk said:

Don't bananas give health not smilies? I didn't think we had a health problem, so I concentrated on dyes for commerce.

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You're right. Just not my day.

The-Hawk said:

I seem to recall this got fixed in a patch, but I'm not sure. I'm never sure, so I play the 100%/0% bit in my SP games.

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I know it was mostly fixed in Warlords but I'm not sure it was ever fixed in vanilla. Mind you given my track record so far I might be wrong on that as well.

Sam_Yeager said:

I obviously misread that.

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Not too worry... sometimes, I write things that aren't so clear, or maybe are ambiguous, or maybe they aren't all the time, except when they are.

Nice turns.

Sweet peace deal with Sally.

Courthouses in each city except the capital is usually my way to go, too, so this is fine with me.

I am a little concerned about all those caravels. They will sink our "navy". Either we get 2 or 3 more cities going on lush island to get these cities more independent from supplies from our mainland or we have to see how we can get some navy techs.

I will have a look at the game tonight to see what comes to my silly mind.

Well done Hawk. Thanks for razing Kufah. I'm worried about foreign naval superiority too. Perhpas we should make a beeline for Optics instead of Guilds?

My turn on bat again. Will get started tonight, wife permitting!

We anyway need metal casting (currently being researched) and machinery before we can make a decision whether to go for optics or guilds, so I think the path for your set, Pariah is more or less set.

Here's the breakdown of my turnset - it's been a fairly quiet 10 turns on the whole. The new save file has already been uploaded.

Start (1154): end of turn.

IBT:
*Asoka completes Hanging Gardens.
*Chinese caravel E of Karakorum.
*Persian galley NE of Corinth,
*Random barbarian moves.

Turn 1 (1160):
*Corinth builds Confucian missionary. Building another missionary next, then swordsman.
*Move 1 citizen to fish tile.
*Corinth worker SW to cottage.
*Missionary onto C1 galley; galley S then SW along coast.
*C2 galley stays on fish tile.
*2nd Corinth worker building road in forest E of city.
*Silver island spearman promoted: C2. Fortify. Settler skips turn.
*Axeman/catapult stack moving back W to Corinth.
*2 home island workers improving dye tile NW of Turfan.

IBT:
*2 Persian HAs attack from galley and destroy our worker E of Corinth.
*Tech ranking: Cyrus 1st, Qin 2nd, Temujin 7th(!)

Turn 2 (1166):
*-3 gpt, research at 40%.
*Turfan spearman complete. Promoted (shock), fortified. Building galley next.
*Stack both keshiks & 1 axeman (C3, cover) from Corinth NE of city; attack 2 Persian HAs. Both enemy units destroyed; 1 keshik lost; other keshik damaged (3.7/6), XPs 17/17.
*Put remaining worker aboard galley with missionary. Galley moving W to Silver Island.
*C2 galley attacks Persian galley. Enemy sunk; no damage to our galley! XPs 10/10. Galley back on fish tile.
*New Sarai city founded on Silver Island. Now -10 gpt. City building chariot, then lighthouse.

IBT:
*More barbarian moves.
*Qin caravel holding position.
*Cyrus adopts serfdom & vassalage.

Turn 3 (1172):
*Galley on fish tile NW Corinth promoted (drill 1). Holding position. Galley north of Athens Island moving to join it.
*Keshik E of Corinth promoted (C3). Stack moves back into city, fortify.
*Corinth has 1 unhappy citizen.
*Treasury 30 gold, -9 gpt. 10 turns to Metal Casting (barbarians same).

IBT:
*Tokugawa completes Great Library.
*Peace treaty with Isabella cancelled.

Turn 4 (1178):
*Unload missionary and worker on Silver Island E coast. Both headed for stone tile NE of New Sarai, via old roads.

IBT:
*Barbarians enter Persian and Chinese lands.

Turn 5 (1184):
*Suddenly acquire Monarchy!
*Civic change: adopt Hereditary Rule, 1 turn Anarchy. (Adopting Organised Relgion as well would mean 2 turns Anarchy, & extra 3 gpt cost).
*Galley stationed NE of Silver Island.
*Axeman/catapult stack fortify hill mine 2E of Corinth.

IBT:
*More random barbarian moves.

Turn 6 (1190):
*Government re-established. Research now 30%; treasury 12, +3 gpt. Metal Casting in 9 turns.
*Missionary spreads Confucianism in New Sarai.
*Worker building quarry on stone tile NE of New Sarai.
*Karakorum: switched 1 citizen from cottage W to horse pasture, for . Colosseum will now take 15 turns instead of 44.
*No unhappiness in COrinth now; both sea resource tiles worked.
*Old Sarai building work boat for New Sarai fish tile (5 turns).

IBT:
*Saladin demands we convert to Taoism. Demand refused.

Turn 7 (1196): Nothing to report.

IBT: Nothing to report.

Turn 8 (1202):
*Dye plantation NW of Turfan complete. Move 1 citizen onto it. Treasury now +4 gpt.
*2 workers moved to grass tile SE of Ning-hsia, building road.
*Corinth population grows to 5. Missionary complete in 4 turns.
*Galley at Silver ISland moving to Corinth.

IBT:
*Barbarian warrior onto gem mine hill 2W of Susa.
*Asoka adopts serfdom & Bueracracy.
*Indian explorer appears on hill tile just outside Corinth border, SE.

Turn 9 (1208):
*Queue another Confucian missionary in Corinth, after swordsman.

IBT:
*Enemy units near Karakorum & Corinth doing no harm.
*Barbarian warrior pillages Persian gem mine.

Turn 10 (1214):
*2 workers SE of Ning-hsia unstacked. 1 move S to build road on dye plantation; other moved to banana tile Sw & W of city.
*Athens worker finishes cottage. Move 2E onto copper mine hill, should build road.
*Treasury now 27, +5 gpt. 3 turns to Metal Casting.

Game saved.

Can somebody please summarise what our strategy is? I'm completely lost as to what we are trying to achieve in this game at the moment, even though we are well into the middle parts of the game now.

A brief recap on our objectives would be helpful in refocussing our direction.

Harbourboy said:

Can somebody please summarise what our strategy is? I'm completely lost as to what we are trying to achieve in this game at the moment, even though we are well into the middle parts of the game now.

Click to expand...

I think it was to catch up on tech and try and put the economy back together so that it is feasible to continue capturing cities. That said, we do seem to have been drifting recently.

I've only had a quick look at the save. At present it looks like it's time to again, build more troops and move existing troops from the home island to lush island. I can't believe that Toku has built the Great Library. Thoughts appreciated.

Get the economy back to capture cities and tech towards knights or maces. I think maces + cats will be the way to go as I think we lost the momentum of knights. They would be nice for some pillaging, but I think we have to start hurting some and cats and maces are better for that IMO.

Good thing we got monarchy.

Roster

Sam, THE WHIPMASTER - UP
drhirsch - on deck (please state whether your PC is clean again)
Harbourboy (will be away from 11th Sep - 4th Oct)
AgedOne
markh
The-Hawk
Pariah - just played

markh said:

Good thing we got monarchy.

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I'm not sure how that happened. Both we and the barbarians were researching Metal Casting. Not complaining, though...

Sam's right: we need to build up our economy and try to catch up technologically before we can seriously pursue world conquest.

Pariah said:

I'm not sure how that happened. Both we and the barbarians were researching Metal Casting. Not complaining, though...

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I think I read somewhere in the pregame discussion that we and the barbs automatically get techs the moment all AIs have this tech.

Pariah said:

I'm not sure how that happened. Both we and the barbarians were researching Metal Casting. Not complaining, though...

Click to expand...

This post explains the mechanism.

I've played but i don't have time to write this up tonight. I'll do that tomorrow evening. I haven't submitted the save yet. If anyone wants it in advance of the writeup then post before 06:00 GMT+1 and I'll submit it tomorrow morning before I go to work.

Summary 1214 AD - 1274 AD
Metal Casting learnt. Machinery in 17 turns. Toku has longbows. Nearly every city has had a taste of the .

Turn 259 - 1214 AD

The king leaned back on his throne in comfort. This new method of governing that his allies had come up with was truly an excellent idea. Now if only their military tactics could be as good. Speaking of which it was time to review the city builds. Old habits died hard and the king saw no reason not to indulge himself occasionally. Karakorum, Ning-hsia, Turfan and Athens all felt the urgency of the king's orders. Beshbalik was told it's builds might progress faster if it had more population. Old Sarai resumed the build of it's courthouse as New Sarai was unable to use a workboat for a while yet. The king looked at the military dispositions and sighed. Corinth was facing the threat of mounted units and there was still a spear in Turfan! He ordered the spear down to Old Sarai. Ning-hsia still had units hanging around from the campaign against Saladin. They were also sent on the long journey towards Old Sarai. All his existing galleys were in the eastern part of the empire. The king ordered the more experienced ones to link up. The less experienced one could head back to Old Sarai. To offset the effect of the research was raised to 40%

Turn 260 - 1220 AD
Karakorum finishes the colosseum. Looking at his nation's power rating the king decides a keshik is worthwhile. Turfan starts a cat whilst the galley heads south. Given that the peasants seem happy with the idea of monarchy the king orders Athens to start a granary. Research is lowered to 30%

IBT: Qin's caravel heads south after the galley.

Turn 261 - 1226 AD
The king's researchers report that we now know how to build forges. Work is now going on into something known as Machinery. The unpromoted galley by Corinth leaves for the homeland so swiftly that the missionary fails to embark in time. Corinth resumes training a swordsman.

Turn 262 - 1232 AD
The king sends orders that he wants Corinth's sword trained faster. The galley returns for Corinth's missionary.

IBT: Coast watchers report that Qin's caravel has sunk the galley enroute to Old Sarai.

Turn 263 - 1238 AD
Corinth pulls out the stops and trains the swordsman. The king decides that he would like to avoid having to transport his military over the seas and orders Corinth to start a forge. The worker by Athens embarks on the galley.

IBT: Travellers report that Cyrus has built the Hagia Sophia.

Turn 264 - 1244 AD
Ning-hsia finishes training a spear and starts on a sword. The citizens complete the courthouse in Old Sarai in double quick time. Whilst reviewing the plans for the attack against Toku the king realises that his intelligence is very old. A keshik is sent to scout out the enemy.

IBT: An annoyed female sends word to the king that he should let her know the secrets of building forges. Somewhat taken aback by the effrontery of this woman the king sends her packing.

Turn 265 - 1250 AD
The citizens of Beshbalik discover the joys of completing a courthouse earlier than the original timescale. Old Sarai resumes work on a galley. The keshik scout reports that Toku appears to have resettled the ruins of Maygar.



Turn 266 - 1256 AD
Beshbalik starts training a swordsman. The galley drops off the worker on silver island. Old Sarai is another city to discover the meaning of haste.

IBT: Qin's caravel moves towards silver island.

Turn 267 - 1262 AD
Old Sarai launches it's galley and resumes work on the workboat. The galley by silver island heads south to avoid Qin's caravel. Research is raised to 40%. The keshik scout reports that Toku has trained a new type of unit.



Turn 268 - 1268 AD
A galley sets out from Old Sarai to reinforce Corinth. It appears that Toku is massing his forces.



IBT: Qin adopts vassalage. Qin's caravel moves to the north of silver island out of sight of coast watchers.

Turn 269 - 1274 AD AD
Karakorum trains a keshik and starts on a forge. Our scouting keshik plunders Toku's gold mine for 13 . OLd Sarai's galley returns to port. Intrepid travellers report that Asoka has settled the island to the west of the homeland. The governor of New Sarai reports that the city will expand it's culture very shortly.

Looks like a solid turnset, Sam_Yeager.

The sooner we can get macemen, the better. The courthouses, also, are essential, aren't they.
Is it still looking like we'll be cutting Toku down with a concerted cat+mace onslaught in a little while? Hope he hasn't progressed to the point where his defences are too tough for maces.

My apologies for being a bit absent for the past few days. Work getting to a very busy time. Shouldn't think I have to miss any turns, though. I'll find some time, even if it means some strange hours.

AgedOne said:

Is it still looking like we'll be cutting Toku down with a concerted cat+mace onslaught in a little while? Hope he hasn't progressed to the point where his defences are too tough for maces.

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Our major problem is getting the military over to Corinth. At about 6 or 7 turns per galley it is somewhat lengthy. It's even worse with Qin's caravel hanging about.

I think we may need to start before maces. I'm hoping that Toku's troops in Phoenician are aimed at Cyrus rather than us. Either that or he is trying to discourage Cyrus. It would be really great if the AI start fighting amongst themselves.

I'm worried about Qin. Apart from that wretched caravel by the homeland I didn't see him. I hope he's not building a ginormous invasion force.