LotR10: Scouting Sid

Civilization: Netherlands
Leader: William
Difficulty: Sid
Map: 60% water archipelago
Temperate: Normal
Age: 4 billion years
Climate: Average
Barbs: Random
Default conditions except Cultural Link and Respawn are OFF.

I didn't take the first start, because I wasnted at least ONE two food tile in our opening 9 -- it was a horrible tundra start that would've been a challenge on Emperor in all likelihood. Second start isn't ideal (no bonus food), but we're going with it.



Move worker north and spot nothing interesting, so I found on the starting square. Being on a river and on the ocean gives us quite a center square to our city -- 3 food, 1 shield, 4 commerce. I start min run on Writing, because min is all we're able to research, considering tech costs are 2.5 times "normal regent" values. And we begin a warrior.

3800 -- First Sid warrior I've ever built. Looks like all the others. Guess I'd better try a curragh next, to get something different. That completes in 3600 and I begin a granary because we look to be FAR from everyone. No contact, no barbs, no huts, no nothing. TOO quiet in a way.

By 3000 BC, we still got NADA, but our granary is almost complete. And we have a lot of cash.

And a lot of map....


[Note a sugar, a curragh, and some tobacco, I believe.]

And a roster, whose order will be determined by who claims it next from the list of crazies who've already signed up (home connection is slow, so I will look up and edit tomorrow).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10-3000bc.zip

Arathorn

Inherited Turn

Nothing to change. Nice bit of scouting, Arathorn.

2950 BC (1)

Granery completes, start settler.

2900 BC (2)

Amsterdam grows. Lux to 30%.

2850 BC (3)

Our curragh spots the first AI border--looks blue.

IT

Spot a Spanish curragh.

2800 BC (4)

Spain is up BW, masonry, wheel, WC, and CB on us--NO trades available. Spain has SIX cities.

2750 BC (5)

WE meet the Hittites. They are up the same as Spain except for masonry. CB is only tech available at 2gpt and 126g (that is all our treasury). I pass. Mursilis has 6 cities.

IT Spain starts the Pyramids.

2710 BC (6)

1st settler. Heads north to grass wines. Amsterdam will build another curragh. Lux back to 20%.

2670 BC (7)

zzz.

2630 BC (8)

zzz.

2590 BC (9)

Curragh produced.

2550 BC (10)

Amsterdam grows. MM is off--settler is due in 3, growth to 5 in 4. Any build will waste too many shields. Found Rotterdam in between two wines--best spot I saw up north. Spain has 8 cities and the Hittites 7.

Here are our lands near the capital.



SID!!

Good luck to the next player!

Sheesh, that's some "island"...Should be able to "get it" tomorrow afternoon.

Discussion? Options? Opinions?

Amsterdam can't grow any faster than every 4 turns, so it can pop a settler every 8, which isn't that great. Rotterdam should be able to get 5 fpt fairly easily, but it will struggle to get the shields it needs to be a 4-turn settler factory. With a granary (assisted by the new shorter time forest chop), though, I think Rotterdam would be an ideal worker factory. [I have no problem, at this point, with using a worker factory, even to pump other cities, although the last point is a bit stickier.] It'll need a granary, 5 fpt, and 5 spt to get that. Should be possible, if a bit tricky. That's what the team is for!

It appears the rest of the north is the barren wasteland of my first rolled start. While it will be worth settling eventually, it's lower priority (and if we lose it to the AIs, oh well!). I agree 100% with the placement of Rotterdam, but I think our next several cities should push south and/or west (yeah, into the fog). I think a realistic goal for the expansion phase is enough cities to get a FP -- which will be built in the south, I'm sure (or I sure hope).

Contacts are still hugely critical. Hopefully, we can get a third and have a Writing monopoly and get some serious catch-up techs out of it. Keep sci @min and go deep into the tree. We won't be able to tech faster than min for a long time (if ever), so we want expensive techs to help us keep up.

Roster:
Arathorn -- still on a high from playing last night
Bam-Bam -- got those kids into bed
Speaker -- PLAYING NOW
Gothmog, Reagan -- fielder's choice for next
Skyfish -- can only comment at this point

"Breathe. Breathe. Relax. Only 8 hours 'til you can go home. And 13 'til you can play again."

Arathorn

lurker's comment:
Sorry, what size map is this? And also how many opponents do you have? You don't seem to mention it at the start.

Standard size map. Full slate of 7 random opponents. I should've mentioned that, I agree.

Arathorn

I can't play until after 8 pm Central time tonight. I started on the Meso conquest last night. It's a blast. The enslavement feature is pretty cool, although taking cities is a challenge because the units are so balanced (2 attack v. 2 defend for a great deal of the game). Having Jags (and their retreat ability) helps to make up for that a little bit.

On settlement--yep, I debated sending the settler south, which would have been my natural inclination to settle. I decided to go north because I could NOT see a good river site by the wines. Finding the second wine was icing on the cake. We are probably going to have to live with one first ring without a river--so no extra food in the center square until republic. The half price aqueduct will make its growth easier.

My recommendation for the non-river city would be NE of the coastal wines (I know it wastes the fish, but I HATE wasting BGs, which would happen if we take the only site that can get the fish.)

We need to get some land exploring done SW--there is likely to be another AI there.

I don't have the game yet , but hopefully I'll get it in the mail tonight *crosses fingers* *knocks on wood* *tosses salt over sholder* ...

We need more info about our immediate area, and obviously expand, expand, expand. A granary in Rotterdam is a no-brainer at this point with no close neighbors, IMO.

IT- God I love Sid. Finally a challenge! Swap Rotterdam over to granary.

2510BC (1): Eastern Curragh continues north and contacts Portugal, who "only" has 4 extra cities as well as Bronze Working, Masonry, the Wheel, Warrior Code, and Ceremonial Burial. I hold off on any trades for now.

2470BC (2): Exploring.

2430BC (3): Amsterdam Settler => Warrior. Hittities now have writing but no one else does.

IT- Portugese finish Colossus, start Oracle.

2390BC (4): Risk pays off and our Curragh does not sink in a sea square. I am enjoying the seafaring trait so far.

2350BC (5): Amsterdam warrior => Settler.

2310BC (6): Exploring.

2270BC (7): Russian city sighted to the west, but no contact is possible at the moment.

2230BC (8): Yellowish (or orangish, can't quite tell) borders next to my curragh in the east.

IT- Russia builds Pyramids.

2190BC (9): Amsterdam settler => Warrior (vetoable). Found The Hague on the coast (no good river spots nearby. Starts curragh. Contact made with the Ottomans who have 6 techs (including writing) and 8 cities.

IT- Aztecs build the Oracle.

2150BC (10): Exploring.

Conclusion- Pretty uneventful set of turns. We should be able to expand a good deal here and have met more than half our rivals. Hopefully when writing finishes in 11 turns it will still have some value. This looks like it's going to be a whole lot of fun.

Scouting Sid

And a few images. Note the power graph:

I see it. I'll play and post tonight, barring a force majeure event.

This one is going to be FUN. Our civ traits are nice for this game, and having no one really close should make this competitive.

Good call on the granery Gothmog and Speaker--that warrior was a placeholder since Rotterdam was just founded on my last turn.

Would also be nice to get another worker out before Rotterdam pulls its granery, but that's a borderline call.

Good luck Reagan.

I rolled a 3, 3, 4, 1, 1 for ten turns of Tyrant rule. I immediately declare war on every civ we know and then get to work trying to rid the world of their vile presence . . . .



OK, OK – wrong LotR game. Here’s the real deal:

(0) 2150 - MM Rotterdam for +1gp. <enter>

(1) 2110 – Amsterdam: warrior->curragh. Hague swaps to worker. Bust some fog with our itty-bitty boats.

(2) 2070 – Our first luxury is online. Let’s party like it’s 1999 . . . errr . . . 2070 BC! Pass the wine, baby! Lux tax to 10%.

(3) 2030 -

(4) 1990 – Amsterdam: curragh->warrior.

(5) 1950 -

(6) 1910 – Amsterdam: warrior->warrior. Utrecht founded, starts barracks.

(7) 1870 – Oh joy. Everyone has Writing now (except us).

(8) 1830 – Amsterdam: warrior->warrior. Rotterdam hits the magical +5fpt mark. Lux to 30% for one turn.

(9) 1790 – Hague: worker->worker. Lux back to 10% now.

(10) 1750 – Amsterdam: warrior->settler.

directions to Sidville

And a map of our neighborhood:

Shouldn't we chop some wood to hurry the granary in Rotterdam

We definitely should, Skyfish. Good observation. This is especially true since a wood chop costs half as many turns as it used to. I would chop north of the river, too, to be certain Rotterdam gets the shields and not Amsterdam.

It looks like we have a lot of land to ourselves -- at this point, anyway. We need to be in all-out claim mode for a while. From the mini-map, there looks to be a choke just north of the equator. If at all possible, I would like to blockade that, so that the AI civs will require map-making before getting into "our" north.

Bummer about writing already being so widespread. Not sure what, if anything, we could've done differently on that score. For techs, I'm thinking keep min-sci runs going on expensive techs (we can do Lit, Philosophy, Map Making, or Code of Laws) while trying to buy cheaper ones. Twofers and morefers would be nice, if possible, but we might already be too far behind for that. Teching looks to be extremely tricky. [Anybody have a good reason for picking one of the four above? Philosophy wouldn't be ours first, so no bonus tech. Lit might be neglected and get us a monopoly, but it's not a required tech and I doubt we'll build many/any libraries. I'm undecided, but would probably pick CoL in a solo game.]

Somebody with dot-mapping expertise want to have a go at this one? Of my civ strengths, dot-mapping is not one of the highest, but I might try over the weekend, if nobody else does.

Roster:
Arathorn
Bam-Bam
Speaker
Reagan
Gothmog -- waiting for delivery still?
Skyfish -- unfairly denied access for another week

Arathorn

We have a warrior to the south who can park himself on the choke point at the appropriate time. We are on one helluva big island for a 'pelago map. If we can go into full settlement mode and grab a good chunk of the prime land we can take the rest from whoever settles it.

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait a bit longer before chopping the forest? We've run out of two-food tiles so the forests are going to come into play in two and seven more turns, which should speed the granary's construction. Chopping the forest(s) would leave us with more two-food tiles, sure, but we very well might end up with non-BG tiles and slow our production again. Adding another ten shields right now won't help because we are still 35 shields from completing the granary. In the meantime, we can mine the grasslands before chopping. If I'm missing something, please let me know, because I want to make sure I'm using sound logic for this and future games.

This one's going to be a challenge for sure!

Crap, I just checked my supplier's web site and it seems that they haven't even shiped my copy yet. Also, I'll be away on buisness from the 16th to the 22nd and unable to play (laptop is a mac). Though I am pretty sure I'll be online.

As for the forest chop debate, don't forget about the whip! If we whip a lower cost item ASAP the unhappiness wont last much longer than the build! Has anything changed with respect to whipping?

Amsterdam could just be switched temporarily to palace/wonder b4 the chop finishes. The shields won't go to Amsterdam, they'll go to Rotterdam. Now you can chop any tiles in Amsterdam radius you want to.