SGOTM2 Germany - Team scout

Wow, you guys have been busy posting :) Another day filled with cricket, beautiful sunshine, fresh air and a sneaky beer after the match... Life's hard.

Okay, back to the game. I like the look of the first 20 turns - good stuff Gengis.

It looks like the next set of turns (10 each from now on, right?) will be initial settler build for settling that ivory city, some worker tasks around Berlin, and more exploration...

Going with Scout's published order, I guess I'm up, right?

Tal
 
scoutsout said:
@ Team - though I doubt Tallanas will get a settler on his turns, where do you guys think our first couple of cities ought to go? And do we want to use RCP? (or do we know enough about the map yet?)

As I've said before, city placement is definitely not my strong suit ( I always try for OCP, but I understand that's not necessarily the best strategy). I will try to work up a dotmap, but it probably won't be before Tallanas's turns.

We should probably try to harness the power of RCP as we are playng vanilla w/ a non-commercial civ. Second city should get the ivory, third should probably also be in that direction, unless we have a neighbor lurking in the shadows.

Since everything is on the up and up, I did download the save. A couple of observations:

Our Opponents

Russia, England, France, Japan, China and India

Three of these civs start with Alphabet, 2 with Pottery (which we already have of course), 2 with Ceremonial Burial, 2 with Masonry, 1 each with Bronze Working and The Wheel. If Culturally linked starts is on we would expect to see Russia, England and/or France.

On The Map

The coast to the NW is fresh water, meaning a lake. So, there is probably a little more up there to see. The rainforest to the south and the Himalayas to the west do hem us in somewhat, but with enough workers we can change those factors for the better. The conveniently located floodplains to the NW of Berlin would make an excellent worker factory.

Just my two cents. Looking forward to everyone else's input.
 
My oh my, post overlap - all those were in quick succession, ignore my comments on asking if I was up next :)
 
Tallanas said:
Going with Scout's published order, I guess I'm up, right?
That would be correct! :D You can either wait for a bit of discussion, or you can go ahead and play your 10. It looks like a litte bit of scouting and some worker turns are mostly what's in store for you at this stage. "Q" posted some good intel on who you might meet and what techs they're likely to have for trading...

Edit: and yes - it's ten each from this point forward.
 
Ok, it will be interesting to see if I see any other civs, as my trading skills need developing. I have a tendency to be too tight with the pursestrings, refusing costly offers and thus costing myself more in the long run...

Anyway, we shall see :)
 
I'd put off our first settler for a bit and get the population up. This will also let us get some more warriors in the field for scouting & MPs. Plus by the end of 10 we'll have alot more revealed and we'll be able to plan our cities better.

If we meet someone I think we should make getting Alphebet a priority, for a math gambit or to go for Lit for the GL. With the right pre-build we might be able to even do both.
 
OK, alphabet, warriors and terrain improvement. Check!

I have downloaded the save game, and am looking at starting now...

Pre-flight...

OK, Berlin checked out, and warriors given their likely scouting orders... Time to press "Enter"...


Turn 1 [2950]

Granary completed. Gamble with AI being smart, and place citizen working the wheat to ensure instant increase to size 3. Hope this does not shaft 2-turn warrior completion... :crossesfingers:

Warriors explore (ooh, look! sea!), worker starts irrigation.

Turn 2 [2900]

Hail, Comrade! A Russian warrior appears, from the south, just 5 squares from Berlin... They have Ivory, the Alphabet, and 10 gold in the bank... Until we get some more techs, there is no business to be done between us.

The AI was (of course) not smart, and chose the all-food square. MM Berlin to produce warrior in one turn...

Turn 3 [2850]

Governor Tallanas is lynched by rioting mobs in Berlin. His successor, also called Tallanas, has learned a valuable lesson in luxury rate adjustment... :blush: Sorry, guys...
More exploration.

Turn 4 [2800]

Warrior becomes MP, as without any luxury tax, TW arrives 3 turns sooner. Another warrior started in order to act as third scout. NE warrior discovers river basin that contains lush wheat-growing lands and floodplains.

Turn 5 [2750]

MM Berlin to produce warrior in one turn. Explore.

Decision taken to start the worker building a road on the game square.
Pros - more trade when it's used (which will be often); second or third city to be founded on the new wheat/river basin, to which this road will lead. Won't lose as many turns of worker activity.
Cons - Worker delayed from irrigating wheat.
Verdict - went with gut feel, build the road.

Turn 6 [2700]

Warrior built. Finances looking iffy. Set Berlin to grow in one turn, new warrior stays to maintain order for now. Tax rate set to 10%, TW arrives in 6, we only lose 1 gold per turn. Set build order to Settler.

Turn 7 [2650]

Settler to arrive in 4, Berlin to grow in 4... More exploration...

Turn 8 [2630]

Road finished. Extra tax hurries TW production. Governor feels better.
Note - the Russians have been very good about staying off German soil. I am suddenly suspicious so I contact their diplomat. He is smug, having just received Masonry and Ceremonial Burial, and having the princely sum of 49 gold in the coffers. We have 9 and are down 3 techs now. Bring on the Wheel...

Turn 9 [2590]

Southern scout sees border to Russian territory... Worker moves to wheat.

Turn 10 [2550]

Worker starts to irrigate. Everything set to kick off next turn - Settler produced, Berlin to expand, and the Wheel to arrive.

Tal vows that if he hears "Our Treasury is running dangerously low" once more, he will personally tie his treasury staff to one of these new-fangled wheels, and roll them all the way to Moscow.

Save game, and breathe sigh of relief that I only made one cock up.
 
Ok, I wrote that in detail in order to give you as much info as possible about what I was thinking. Feel free to give me pointers, and to slap me for my disobedient citizens.

Here is a screen shot - I have put yellow circles over two sites i *believe* to be suitable for RCP, if I understand it right. Again, feel free to set me straight.

I know that this isn't a trainer game, but I would appreciate some feedback from all my team mates, just for the sake of self improvement.

The save is now uploaded, by the way :)

Tal
 

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Solid Turns Tallanas, it sounds like you're at a point where your learning curve is getting steeper. Don't sweat the riot, you reacted well to it, it's one of those things that you have to adjust to as you work up the levels. RE: building a road - when in doubt, building a road is a good thing to do with worker turns.

I'd like it if we all took a day to look things over and think about things a bit. Tallanas has got things set up for a settler next turn, so we should probably think about where we want the next city. I'd also like us to think about using RCP, even if we decide not to.

On research - once we get the Wheel in hand, we could probably try to trade for Alphabet and pursue Writing at 10%. Thoughts? Comments? (Gengis?)

Genghis Khan - patiently waiting
Tallanas - improving his game and improving terrain
mrTweed - Up, but let's wait a day for a little discussion/strategizing.
scoutsout - on deck
qm1pooh - warming the bench
 
@ Tallanas - I forgot to mention that I saw some things I liked in your micromanagement. I especially like the way you've got things set in Berlin to make a settler and grow on the same turn. :thumbsup:

On the rioting - Gengis passed along a link to some "enhanced smileys" that make it much easier to check the city happiness from the F1 screen. I'm not a huge fan of modding my game up, but there are 2 graphics mods I do use, and that's one of 'em. (Corn's borders is the other...and is less important)

@ Gengis: would you please post a link to those smileys? I must have deleted the PM you sent me with that link, and I forgot what they're called...
 
scoutsout said:
@ Tallanas - I forgot to mention that I saw some things I liked in your micromanagement. I especially like the way you've got things set in Berlin to make a settler and grow on the same turn. :thumbsup:

On the rioting - Gengis passed along a link to some "enhanced smileys" that make it much easier to check the city happiness from the F1 screen. I'm not a huge fan of modding my game up, but there are 2 graphics mods I do use, and that's one of 'em. (Corn's borders is the other...and is less important)

@ Gengis: would you please post a link to those smileys? I must have deleted the PM you sent me with that link, and I forgot what they're called...

Sounds helpful :)

As for strategizing and discussing, here are some thoughts. I would suggest the settler follow the road towards the wheat - it's a nice city square, and he can get there quicker. Also, with berlin shrinking again, the need for the ivory is alleviated a little.

Thoughts on RCP... Slight unease since it would be the first time I used it, BUT I would like to see it in action, so I would happily vote for it. Funnily enough, it would go against my "inner governor" since I like OCP myself. Overlap is the devil's work, but I understand the best Civvers use it, at times at least, so I think i should get familiar with it...

Tal
 
@Tal: Don't confuse RCP as an anti-OCP tactic. RCP ("Ring City Placement") involves placing cities in "rings" a certain distance from the capitol. The effect (in CivIII and PTW) is reduced corruption. You can still have cities with little overlap using RCP, just use a larger distance (RCP5 instead of 4, for example).

Having said all that, I think you will find that the "best CIVers" use tighter city placement for a more basic reason - using as many available tiles as possible, as soon as possible. Using OCP, you are "wasting" fewer tiles through overlap. The counter-argument is that since your cities can't grow past size 12 until the industrial era, you're "wasting" half your tiles for half the game because you don't have enough citizens to work all the tiles in a city's radius.

I used to play OCP a lot. I'm fond of the industrial era, and all the toys it brings. OCP really kicks in during the industrial era. But it is tough to make OCP work at levels beyond Monarch - and that's why the "best CIVers" are fond of tighter city placement - they're playing Emperor level or higher.

I'm not saying playing OCP at upper levels can't be done (RBCiv Epic 40 had a "zero-overlap" variant at emperor level) but the Ancient and Middle Ages are much easier with somewhat tighter city spacing, IMO. (I'm not a fan of ICS either...)

I'll post a dotmap later showing what RCP 3 or 4 might look like on this map.
 
OK, I take your point there about OCP vs RCp and their not being mutually exclusive... And I see what you mean about the overlap issue and pre-hospital tile usage. I guess I am just too neat for my own good.

Having thought more about it, I would vote yes for RCP if the map looks like it supports it (my initial analysis seems to suggest it would) - anything to cut down on corruption, since we are going to need cash and science aplenty...


Tal - learning all the time :)
 
All I can add(since you asked for suggestions), is that you should have irrigated the game before roading it. I see where you were coming from with our treasury fast depleating, but growth is by far the most important thing right now. Those turns saved growing will more then make up for the 1 extra gpt.

Riots happen, don't sweat it.

As far as research goes, that's a tough one. I doubt we'll be able to pull a 40 turn gambit on either Writing or IW, and the best chance for a gambit we have Math we need Masonry for. I'd go 40 turn gambit on HBR, using TW to trade for Alph(so we can still see when someone pulls in Writing). Our gambit might pan out, probably won't though but at least we'll put some gold in our treasury for trading. Lit isn't that much of a priority right now, since with a decent pre-build, we can then trade for it when we get close. With how things are looking I think MapMaking will become THE priority tech, so we can pump out some suicide galleys & start meeting people.

As far as city placement goes I think we should go with the Western site first, those mountain/hills will be a pain to road through to get the eastern one connected first.
As an alternate site we could settle 1 tile SW of the ivory, it will still be on RCP 5, will have an ivory, but it will also have a floodplain(or maybe 2). The drawback is that it will need an aqueduct down the road, but we can turn it into a worker pump for now so that won't be a problem.
 
Gengis Khan said:
All I can add(since you asked for suggestions), is that you should have irrigated the game before roading it. I see where you were coming from with our treasury fast depleating, but growth is by far the most important thing right now. Those turns saved growing will more then make up for the 1 extra gpt.

Do you mean I should have irrigated the wheat before roading the game? The game was already done... If so, then, yeah, I can see both sides of that one! Tough call, but fortunately, not a huge deal.

Gengis Khan said:
With how things are looking I think MapMaking will become THE priority tech, so we can pump out some suicide galleys & start meeting people.

That may very well be true. Looks like we do the 40 turn gambit on HBR and pray!

Gengis Khan said:
As far as city placement goes I think we should go with the Western site first, those mountain/hills will be a pain to road through to get the eastern one connected first.
As an alternate site we could settle 1 tile SW of the ivory, it will still be on RCP 5, will have an ivory, but it will also have a floodplain(or maybe 2). The drawback is that it will need an aqueduct down the road, but we can turn it into a worker pump for now so that won't be a problem.

I think we need a dotmap discussion... Both sites are nice, but you are right that roading towards the west is easier. Also, the worker is already over that way...

Tal
 
@Tal- Nice set of turns. I also thought your MM'ing was great.

So many things to say.... I think the HBR gambit might be our best bet. Russia could have gotten all those techs from huts, but I would suspect that our other neighbors are south of them. One of the other Alphabet civs (England, France or India, whoever's down there) will probably take the road to Writing, while Russia is likely to go for IW. We trade around HBR after making some more money, and we should be ok.

I think the Settler should go to the NW, just because it will be easier to link to at first. I am also not that good with counting RCP, but I think that the spot to the east with the wheat and the spot Gengis mentioned are at RCP 5. The ivory spot could be set up as a nice worker factory with those floodplains.

The one thing I am a little leery of right now is the lack of troops. We do have a high barb setting, so I don't know how wise a true Farmer's Gambit would be. We also have a lot more of the continent to explore, and with Russia as close as she is we might have to run blocks on the spices or the incense. I say we should let Berlin build up some population before another settler, and just keep building warriors. That will also allow some worker turns to develop the capital a bit more.

I'll try to work up a dotmap for discussion.
 
@ Q - a dotmap would be appreciated. I'll probably post one this evening myself.

I think the next 30 turns or so will be important ones.. having said that...

@ Tweed - are you still with us? Since the next 10 turns are yours - we need your thoughts and input too! :)

Hopefully we can have some decent discussion today/tonight, and Tweed can pick it up tomorrow and move us along. I expect we'll pick up the pace a little once our strategy comes together.
 
hell yeah im still ere sorry if i seem a little vacant im at uni and also have a job so balancing them plus civ and cs can be a little troublesome but dont worry ill come here to our thread evry day if i can. the first settler coming out i was going to place in 5 tiles due ne from berlin, i believe genghis mentioned this site, well with 2 ivory+ 4 floodplain +gold montains = excellent placement site. nice job with the turns so far tallanas ( btw u do know that caesers first name was gaius , im afraid im ignorant to a tallanas), after this im sure i could chug out another settler in the next 5 or 6 turns, link up berlin and leipzig after i founded it,and link the ivory and start the first 10 turns of hbr on min. other good sites are due north, to catch the 2 gold mountains and 2 bonusgrasslands( a good wonder prebuild site), sw to get the spices and b grassland (good barracks unit site) and dueeast in between the incense and wheat(multipurpose site).

sorry if the above is a little garbled i aint slept since saturady or was it friday..
 
also btw for all the admins regarding the save.... Got It
 
mr Tweed said:
sorry if the above is a little garbled i aint slept since saturady or was it friday..
Well...why don't you get some sleep before playing your turns then ;) We need you to have your "game face" on... don't worry we won't skip you - the game can wait. :D
 
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