SGOTM 05 - Geezers

Part way through my turn. Most of our land looks like jungle. Toku, Cyrus & Izzy are on the large island to the E. Saladin is on the island to the S and is reachable by galley.

Should I still go for settler next & then worker? I've uploaded the current save to this thread so you can see the current situation.

Save 3850 BC

Interesting!
Firstly, does everyone have 0 score on your game in progress? They do on the savegame when I load it, but I think this is the mod problem that (I think) Gyathaar mentioned in the maint thread - except he referred to it happening on 4000BC. Looks like it happens each time a save is loaded. No worries, though.

Love the lions in the capital . That never happened to me in trials.

As you said, the land is pretty awful, unless the much anticipated horses and metals are revealed. That'll change things a bit. Otherwise, perhaps we should live elsewhere

The Arabs seem to be the closest, unless the little island to the NE leads on to anyone, or anything interesting is revealed from the SE of our island.

Fractal archipelago seems to mean "We get the cruddy little island, while several AI share large lush continents!"

As you said, Izzy, Toku and Cyrus are sharing a big land mass half a world away to the E. Add Asoka to that. I'm sure he's up to the NE of the same mass.

Alexander seems to be just to their West (I can see by zooming way out and turning on cultural shading) Can't tell if he's connected to their continent, or offshore on his own.

What do we make of our little land? So far we can only see these resources that are not within the range of the capital:
3xSilks; Banana; Rice.
The only place that looks like a possible city2 is down at the far end, where we could place it to include rice+silk+banana+hill. Not great.

I'm intrigued by the grassland patch in the centre that runs W-E and has silks at the E end. It's an unusual sight to have this kind of clearing in the jungle. I get the feeling other resources might be revealed here - or my psychic powers may be misfiring.

In answer to your question - settler or worker next? - I am more inclined to change my mind now and go for a worker. We can work the bananas and pigs by the time the worker's out. Remember the barbs won't steal any city sites for another 65 turns or so. Long before then we should know if there are horses around, and we can nip in and settle there before them.

PS. I think Izzy has popped a hut and released barbs
In the central area of the big continent, there are 2 barb warriors - on turn 14!
One of Izzy's units seems to be legging it to the south.

AgedOne said:

Interesting!
Firstly, does everyone have 0 score on your game in progress? They do on the savegame when I load it, but I think this is the mod problem that (I think) Gyathaar mentioned in the maint thread - except he referred to it happening on 4000BC. Looks like it happens each time a save is loaded. No worries, though.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty certain everyone has a score in my game. Don't have the game open at present to check.

AgedOne said:

In answer to your question - settler or worker next? - I am more inclined to change my mind now and go for a worker. We can work the bananas and pigs by the time the worker's out. Remember the barbs won't steal any city sites for another 65 turns or so. Long before then we should know if there are horses around, and we can nip in and settle there before them.

Click to expand...

I've been thinking further and wonder whether I should get a settler down south in case Saladin tries to settle there. On balance though I doubt that he's likely to settle that early. I'll probably go for worker next.

Sam_Yeager said:

I'm pretty certain everyone has a score in my game. Don't have the game open at present to check.

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I'm pretty sure it's this problem that I'm seeing: here
I tried loading one of my trial game saves and the same thing happened. However, it seems the problem goes away after you end turn. Looks like it'll be with us throughout this SGOTM each time we hand a save on to the next player.

Sam_Yeager said:

I've been thinking further and wonder whether I should get a settler down south in case Saladin tries to settle there. On balance though I doubt that he's likely to settle that early. I'll probably go for worker next.

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I can't see Saladin planting his second city overseas, so I don't think we have too much to worry about. If he does think of settling there before we do, I vote we take his city off him - and then kill him!

4000 BC - 3130 BC

Temujin glared at his advisors. "We've spent 30 years camping here whilst our scouts explored the lands near here. And now you tell me this spot is the best place to build a city?".

"Great despot Temujin", said his senior advisor in a quavering voice, "The land in this region is not nearly as good as expected. Even this spot is not that good. It's just less bad than other places."

"Very well", growled Temujin, "so be it. For your sake, and your neck, this had better be the right decision!" And so Karakorum was founded. First priority was to build some military protection. Looking at the fertile land it was decided to research a way to make use of it.

Scouts were sent to explore Temujin's new dominion. Temujin's barbarian allies were instructed to explore the world. Periodic barbarian messengers told of the discovery of a large and lush island, continent sized, to the east of Temujin's island. To make matters worse they informed him that this lush land was inhabitated by some of his worst enemies, namely Tokugawa, Isabella, Asoka and Cyrus. Temujin's temper was not helped by the discovery of large amounts of jungle in his lands. A passing traveller told of the establishment of a religion called Buddhism by Asoka before his untimely demise at the hands of Temujin's executioners.

Barbarian allies told of the discovery of Saladin on an island to the south of Temujin's lands. Following a discussion with his advisor about the extensive jungle Temujin decided that it was better to work the existing land prior to establishing a new city. Towards the end of Temujin's reign scouts discovered gold and stone in the hitherto unexplored SE portion of his island.



Turn saves

EDIT: Looks like I got the number of turns wrong. Oh well, the next player up can play an extra turn.

EDIT 2: All the scores will read zero when you load the save. The correct scores re-appear once the end turn button is pressed. Obviously a glitch in Gyathaar's mod.

Roster

Sam - just played
drhirsch - UP
Harbourboy - on deck
AgedOne
markh
The-Hawk
Pariah (skipped until he reports being available)

Nice writeup, Sam. You want to write a spoiler ?

I have not yet patched my game, so I cannot load the save, yet. Will do that tomorrow. Our lands do not look that beautiful. I think we have to do some island hopping.

I changed the build order to get a worker first because in my opinion, at the time, there was no really suitable spot for a settler. In addition I felt that the settler would build faster if we build a farm with the worker whilst waiting for AH. Hopefully the rest of the team won't think that was too much of a move.

Now that the island has been more thoroughly explored it looks like there are only two spots worth settling until we get IW. The one down to the SW is IMHO only really worth settling to stop Saladin going there. The spot by the gold and stone looks far more desirable. However I would suggest that we road down to there before we found a city to minimise maintenance costs.

markh said:

You want to write a spoiler ?

Click to expand...

That's been a bit of a disaster area for Geezer's for the last few games. I'll think about it but I would prefer not to do it.

Sam_Yeager said:

That's been a bit of a disaster area for Geezer's for the last few games. I'll think about it but I would prefer not to do it.

Click to expand...

I was just joking. The overall spoiler writing was quite light. I do not see any reason to write one at all.

Worker is fine with me. We should find a good production spot to crank out units. After the worker we can build a settler to claim that spot.

Will download and play this evening.

Before we get ahead of ourselves... let's look at the big picture. I think we see enough to pick a victory condition and develop our grand strategy (this is the nice part of barb allies). If we are going to finish near the top, we need to develop a strategy and focus on it. For example, depending on our victory condition, we might not want to invade Saladin at all (ever). I think we might even change our choice for next tech! (see below)

Seems obvious to me that two victory conditions are bad options:

Culture: Culture win looks unlikely. Our capital is not a great legendary city with all of its ocean tiles. There is probably only one decent commerce site (to the west) and no GP factory. It looks like Saladin's island is the only reachable one, and it is pretty crappy too. Maybe his partly hidden capital could be a legendary city, but that still leaves us short a city. No point in going for culture if we have to attack another island. This will require Astronomy, which means our last culture city starts real late. At that point, we might as well go for Dom.

Conquest: Seems pointless. It would require chasing the AI's on all the out islands. Dom would come much sooner.

This leaves two that victory conditions that could work:

Space: Of course, space could be accomplished, the question is how fast? If going for space, I would grab Saladin's island and stop invasions there. However, both of those islands are pretty poor, so this might be a slow launch.

Domination: If we are going for Dom, then we it looks like we need to attack the large continent. I don't think all the small islands added together will provide enough land for Dom. However, the large continent alone is enough for Dom (I counted roughly 600-700 tiles), although we should recount once the barbs show us the rest of the land. Given we need to attack the main continent for Dom, is there any reason to attack the other small islands (e.g. Saladin)? It will simply create maintenance cost on crappy land.

My vote:

Sigh... I think Dom is the way to go. Looks to me like the fastest option.

So, I'm thinking the best path to Dom is to settle our current island and crank up the research engine. This means settlers and cottages ASAP (I think maybe 5 more cities). I would also suggest we research Pottery next (not BW) so that we can get those cottages started immediately. We won't need axes for a few turns, nobody to attack.

We beeline for Astronomy and sail west for the mainland. Get a toehold there, maybe move our capital to minimize maint, then send the hordes West to victory.

Research will be critical... can't start our Dom until Astronomy and when we do go to the other continent, we want a clear tech advantage so we can get established. I would build very few early units, we simply don't need them... just a handful of axes and spears to protect our city near Saladin. Most of our units should ultimately be built on the new continent as we expand.

With respect to diplomacy... I would make peace with all the AI's asap. There is no reason for them all to be pissed at us when we go to the main continent, don't want our toehold to be dogpiled.

OK Geezers, what are your votes for victory condition???

drhirsch said:

Will download and play this evening.

Click to expand...

Ermm.... What's your plan for the turnset in terms of builds, tech research etc? We've got until October so we can aford to wait a bit to discuss what we should do.

Nice analysis The-Hawk. I wish I could provide a convincing argument against your conclusion but that's not the case. The only thing I would point out is that backdoor diplo is also an option. In practice we may have shut down research before we get as far as that but we should bear the option in mind.

The-Hawk said:

Domination: If we are going for Dom, then we it looks like we need to attack the large continent. I don't think all the small islands added together will provide enough land for Dom. However, the large continent alone is enough for Dom (I counted roughly 600-700 tiles), although we should recount once the barbs show us the rest of the land. Given we need to attack the main continent for Dom, is there any reason to attack the other small islands (e.g. Saladin)? It will simply create maintenance cost on crappy land.

Click to expand...

I think we need to scout Saladin's before ruling him out as a target. If for no other reason than that he may well have better production than we do. If so then it would make sense to take him out first. Especially since we can reach him with galleys. In addition he may have a resource that we want.

The-Hawk said:

So, I'm thinking the best path to Dom is to settle our current island and crank up the research engine. This means settlers and cottages ASAP (I think maybe 5 more cities). I would also suggest we research Pottery next (not BW) so that we can get those cottages started immediately. We won't need axes for a few turns, nobody to attack.

Click to expand...

Two points:

• We need IW before we can settle much of our island so we do need BW fairly soon on the path to IW.
• With all that grassland I would hope we get a good GP farm going using farms.

The-Hawk said:

We beeline for Astronomy and sail west for the mainland. Get a toehold there, maybe move our capital to minimize maint, then send the hordes West to victory.

Research will be critical... can't start our Dom until Astronomy and when we do go to the other continent, we want a clear tech advantage so we can get established.

Click to expand...

The question is how do we get a tech lead? Unless the big four on lush island start fighting against each other they're likely to be busy trading techs between themselves.

The-Hawk said:

With respect to diplomacy... I would make peace with all the AI's asap. There is no reason for them all to be pissed at us when we go to the main continent, don't want our toehold to be dogpiled.

Click to expand...

Sounds a good idea. We should bear in mind that we'll get additional demerits when we re-declare war.

The-Hawk said:

OK Geezers, what are your votes for victory condition???

Click to expand...

Sadly, I am forced to agree with a Dom attempt. Sadly, only because we will be going with the herd. There's nothing wrong with Dom itself, of course.

The-Hawk said:

Domination: If we are going for Dom, then we it looks like we need to attack the large continent. I don't think all the small islands added together will provide enough land for Dom. However, the large continent alone is enough for Dom (I counted roughly 600-700 tiles), although we should recount once the barbs show us the rest of the land. Given we need to attack the main continent for Dom, is there any reason to attack the other small islands (e.g. Saladin)? It will simply create maintenance cost on crappy land.

Click to expand...

You're right. Unless Sal's land is going to be any use (and a quick scout wouldn't hurt) either because it's resource-rich, or because it leads somewhere, via an island chain, we should leave him be.

The-Hawk said:

So, I'm thinking the best path to Dom is to settle our current island and crank up the research engine. This means settlers and cottages ASAP (I think maybe 5 more cities). I would also suggest we research Pottery next (not BW) so that we can get those cottages started immediately. We won't need axes for a few turns, nobody to attack.

Click to expand...

As Sam_Yeager said (above), we will be needing IW to remove the jungle, so we shouldn't forget BW for too long. Apart from that, I agree with going pottery and cottage-spam.

As we settle, remember that the barbs will gleefully jump on those locations they consider the best. I'm reckoning they will like these areas to the East:

View attachment 156780

and West:

View attachment 156781

So we'll have to be in probably both areas by turn 80 if we want to deny them.

The-Hawk said:

With respect to diplomacy... I would make peace with all the AI's asap. There is no reason for them all to be pissed at us when we go to the main continent, don't want our toehold to be dogpiled.

Click to expand...

About half of the AI will probably be coming over to talk about peace pretty soon, in my experience. The ones who come of their own accord are those further down the scores than us, who are least aggressive. Those at the higher scores will probably not make peace for ages yet.

I agree, this looks like a Domination or Scpace Race, the former being faster.

My proposal for BW first was mainly because the whipping and the possible additional production from the copper square, not because of the axes.
Pottery has a nice synergy with slavery, because it doubles the efficiency of the whip. But on the other hand, you need something you want to whip, and we are currently lacking possible buildings.
Another point is the lack of food resources - you typically need 2 in a city you want to whip regularily. And cottaging and whiping don't go very well together...

But Sam has a point, we will need IW sooner or later, possibly sooner. I am undecided at the moment.

I honestly never have tried to setup a GP farm only with grassland farming. I think it will only be effective later in the game, when there are more happiness resources available. I usually do GP farms only with lots of food and production in a city.

If Saladin has a good capital, we should take it (maybe he does build the pyramids for us?!? , the remainder of his land looks even worse than ours.

I will try to come up with a dotmap later, and I think it will be 4-5 cities.

Ermm.... What's your plan for the turnset in terms of builds, tech research etc?

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Build millions of troops, research phasers and then CRUSH IZZI of course.

I just wanted to throw in some lines, that I haven't forgotten you


BTW, did anybody notice the stone?

The Great Prophet is never wrong!

drhirsch said:

Build millions of troops, research phasers and then CRUSH IZZI of course.

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LOL! The Mongols and their Hordes - of Phaser Warriors

drhirsch said:

BTW, did anybody notice the stone?
The Great Prophet is never wrong!

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Eerie, isn't it?
It's one of the things that I thought might attract the Barbs to the Eastern locations I marked on the map. However, I think they'll be more attracted by the Gold. I think we should get down there smartly!

Please avoid uploading your saves to this thread. There's a danger that someone will play forward from that save instead of from the one you eventually upload to the SGOTM server. Just upload all your saves to the SGOTM server. You don't have to wait until the end of your turn set.

drhirsch said:

I honestly never have tried to setup a GP farm only with grassland farming. I think it will only be effective later in the game, when there are more happiness resources available. I usually do GP farms only with lots of food and production in a city.

Click to expand...

I'm certainly not suggesting that we set up a GP farm just now. It was more after we have cleared some of the jungle at which point lots of grassland farms generates loads of food to feed the specialists. In any case a GP farm is a non starter unless we either get a religion or more likely can build libraries. Caste system also tends to help.