SGOTM 04 - Geezers

For our more immidiate needs; iron, I would like the city to contain iron in the immidiate boundary and would like it to have a food source to grow fast to 6 pop. of the current spots, i like the pink spot. but ...

my preffered spot is a compromise and place city 4 between iron and blue spot. this will give both resources in the 9 tiles and only 2 coast tiles, and 2 river spot for 3gpt cottages when culture grow. in the mean time we have several grassy hills for hammers.

We only need this city untill we move.

Are we sure we are moving? It has been mentioned several times but wouldn't it be easier to just take out whoever is next to Gandhi and let him expand on his side of the water? I'd hate to plan less then optimal cities because we are going to move and then end up stuck with them the whole game.

If we are going away from the coast I like yellow. If we are staying on coast I like green unless there is a hidden resouces in blue's fog in which case I'd switch to blue. I propose that while Harbourboy plays his couple turns spying before he uploads that he send the capital warrior north as well so we can find out for sure what's in blue before deciding for sure where to place city.

Is it agreed that you all want me to play the two turns of Open Border spying? I am ready to play right now, but can wait until tomorrow if we are still not yet in agreement on this.

Another question: Nidaros will become unhappy in 6 turns. Do you want me to do anything specific to combat that?

Harbourboy said:

Is it agreed that you all want me to play the two turns of Open Border spying? I am ready to play right now, but can wait until tomorrow if we are still not yet in agreement on this.

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Looks like there is a majority in favour so you should go ahead. Post the save in this thread rather than submitting it. You might as well move the warrior in the NW towards that ex barb city as well. It may also be worth moving the chariot south of Uppsala

Harbourboy said:

Another question: Nidaros will become unhappy in 6 turns. Do you want me to do anything specific to combat that?

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Since you're only playing two turns there's no need to worry about that at present.

OK then.

I played three turns after going Open Borders with Khan because the workboat revealed nothing after two moves. See below for details of what we have found out:

View attachment Geezers BC-0655.CivWarlordsSave

How do I post the screenshots?

Just playing with ideas here rather than making firm proposals:

• If we want to beeline Caste for a GP farm then going Meditation -> Priesthood -> CoL (39 turns) would be quicker than Currency -> CoL (61 turns) at our current research rate. Alpha would take 21 turns at our current research rate so it would be quicker to self research rather than wait to trade.
• At present El Dorado is our top city for gold & science. Nidaros is our top production city. Despite that it looks as the 'mids will take another 22 turns (370 BC) even assuming 4 chops. Perhaps it would be better for Nidaros to build a library and a barracks (11 turns without chops) plus military and workers? This would save those forests for something more achievable and also free up those workers that would be chopping to do other things such as building improvements for city 4.
• Yellow dot maximises grassland tiles whilst Htadus's suggestion allows the city to grow rather faster. In principle I favour yellow dot. However time is not on our side so faster growth has a lot going for it.

Harbourboy said:

OK then.
How do I post the screenshots?

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Either attach them to the post or use the Easy Upload option under Quick Links and link to them.

I will not play any more turns until some more discussion is had on exactly what to do next as we are at an important point in the game. Here is what happened on those three turns:

IBT: Nothing
685 BC: Open Borders with Khan, Moved Chariot to Upsala, El Dorado Settler Chop completed – sent worker to mine gems at Upsala, moved Work Boat west

IBT: Nothing
670 BC: Sent worker to pre chop pyramids, work boat kept moving but found nothing interesting

IBT: Nothing
655 BC: Worker started mining gems, work boat kept moving but found nothing of interest, chariot found Khan cultural border 4 squares south of Uppsala

Typical AI. Trust them to found Beshbalik there. We could have circumnavigated our land by now but for that city.

Harbourboy said:

I will not play any more turns until some more discussion is had on exactly what to do next as we are at an important point in the game.

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I would love you to continue exploring but I agree you had better wait.

Sorry, Jenarie, but I forgot to send your warrior north. Even in just 3 turns I managed to forget to do something.

This is stressful - but fun. I'm not going to be happy until Khan is just a steaming pile of ashes. Hope he doesn't overrun us while I am on watch.

I think we need to play a couple more turns untill we can see Kahn's capital. I was vague in my comments earlier. I was hoping to send the boat to the tile by corn and horse hoping to see if the capital is visible, but I did not say it. My error. But the chariot can make the contact in few turns. So we should let boat keep on going west.

This is what I am thinking. If he has iron, copper and horses connected, we got a problem. If metals are not connected, we need to take what we got in about 10 turns and go on a pillaging job to deny him his horses. and then go take his capital with all we got. With out horses and metal. He will only be able to build archers. BTW if he has his wine connected, we need to hurry real hard. Beacuse he is on his way to get LBows. Please comment.

Htadus said:

I think we need to play a couple more turns untill we can see Kahn's capital. I was vague in my comments earlier. I was hoping to send the boat to the tile by corn and horse hoping to see if the capital is visible, but I did not say it. My error. But the chariot can make the contact in few turns. So we should let boat keep on going west.

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If I understand you correctly you originally wanted the WB to retrace it's course? Why would we have seen anything more this time than the initial time?

Htadus said:

This is what I am thinking. If he has iron, copper and horses connected, we got a problem. If metals are not connected, we need to take what we got in about 10 turns and go on a pillaging job to deny him his horses. and then go take his capital with all we got. With out horses and metal. He will only be able to build archers. BTW if he has his wine connected, we need to hurry real hard. Beacuse he is on his way to get LBows. Please comment.

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As I recall there was iron by Ning-Hsia which at the time was unconnected.

The subject of attack was discussed earlier. Realistically we are probably not in a position to do this. Khan currently has seven cities to our three and can out produce us. As I see it we need to try and keep on good terms with Khan whilst building up enough military to defend ourselves.

OK, I will do few more turns in 17 hours' time and post an updated view. Any other comments made before then will be taken into consideration.

The settler will be ready in 2 turns so I will probably have to deal with that at the same time. If I send that north with an axeman, we should be able to clear the fog up there and finalise a settlement spot.

Harbourboy said:

OK, I will do few more turns in 17 hours' time and post an updated view. Any other comments made before then will be taken into consideration.

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This is starting to be a rather disjointed turnset. I think it would be best to defer any further moves until we have a better idea of what we actually want to do and build in this turnset. I realise this is messing you about, and I apologise for that, but I really think it would be better otherwise we may end up cancelling builds and retracing our steps.

How will I actually know when we actually have a better idea what we want to do?

Harbourboy said:

How will I actually know when we actually have a better idea what we want to do?

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Well I've floated some ideas on what we might do and Htadus has posted some ideas. We've still to hear from Thrallia and Jenarie and mark. If you have any ideas as how we can get back on track on the science and military side then post them by all means. Then we need to get a consensus on what is feasible and desirable.

Looking at what I've just written I'm not sure that entirely answers your question. I guess all I can say is follow, and post to, the thread.

I’m not so good on the ‘how’, as I have not played as much on Monarch level as you guys have, but I know what outcome I am looking for in the medium term, and it definitely involves getting rid of the Mongolians.

If I was playing the whole rest of the game completely by myself, I would be:

1) Settling near the iron (probably the yellow spot)
2) Chop-whipping the pyramids
3) Focusing research towards Catapults
4) Catapult-rushing Khan
5) Focus research towards Trebuchets and Beserkers to finish him off.

For me, Khan is the primary objective. I would be worrying about Gandhi’s space race later. Once Khan is out of the way and our economy has recovered to make use of his land, then there would be plenty of time to manipulate factors to help Gandhi into space. Then we could focus on getting him there as early as possible. But we’ve got to get into that position first, and I don’t think we’ll get there if Khan is still on the scene.

My problem is that I am not that good at the intricate micromanagement required to optimise the situation, as I usually play on Prince where life is a bit more forgiving of lazy city management.

The primary questions I would be asking when seeking help on this would be:
- how do I make best use of the Pyramids once I had them?
- What is the best way to maximise the benefits of the Beserker (as I have never played as Ragnar before)?

I’m pretty keen to get on with the game, but I will wait to play any more turns until there is a clearer team view on where we want to take things.

Who would have thought a game like this could be so engrossing?

Sam_Yeager said:

If I understand you correctly you originally wanted the WB to retrace it's course? Why would we have seen anything more this time than the initial time?

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I did not think that the WB was on the tile south of corn. If it was on that tile and we did not see the capital, that is good news indeed. That mean it is Not on a Hill.

Sam_Yeager said:

As I recall there was iron by Ning-Hsia which at the time was unconnected.

The subject of attack was discussed earlier. Realistically we are probably not in a position to do this. Khan currently has seven cities to our three and can out produce us. As I see it we need to try and keep on good terms with Khan whilst building up enough military to defend ourselves.

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Well the thing is, If kahn has no horses and metal, then all he can build is warriors and archers. Spears, Axes, Swords and chariots can make life very misarable to warriors and archers. Once his Initial onslaught is done, ie his KESHICKS are dead. We get to experiance up our units and take one town out at a time.

On a recent game, I had Iron and horses, but did not have them protected with archers. Saladin Dow'ed and took out my horses and iron in couple of turns. The game told me that I could not continue building my chariots or axes. He had most of his cities defenbed by just 1 archer and my archers did not do that well against that and i had to bow out. I think we can do the same. But all this depend on what he has built now.

BTW if we are going the wait until later route to take Kahn out, we need to maximize our city plots, That mean we need to go to markH's coastal blue spot and another along the river. It will take us a long time to have cities working 20 tiles and the land is being wasted in the interim.

So we come back to what we need to do over the next 17 turns.

I think we can agree that we will not be in a position to attack Khan within 17 turns. So this is not something I need to worry about.

I think what needs to happen in the next 17 turns is:
- take the settler north to settle (not sure how we resolve exactly where – maybe there is no wrong place)
- complete reconnaissance of Mongolia
- build some spearmen for defence (and future attack support)
- finish mathematics and research something else (how do we agree on what?)
- micromanage commerce output of 4 cities to keep science running hot
- chop the Pyramids after mathematics (but will probably still not be complete within 17 turns)

For the next turnset, we can re-assess our readiness to attack Khan, based on where we find ourselves in relation to his units and resources at that point.

Having not played a successive game before, I am a little unclear on exactly how much agreement is required before we can move on. In the meantime, I will err on the side of caution and wait to at least hear another round of comments from everyone before proceeding (depending on whether Thrallia gets back online or not).

Harbourboy said:

So we come back to what we need to do over the next 17 turns.

I think we can agree that we will not be in a position to attack Khan within 17 turns. So this is not something I need to worry about.

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OK. But if they declare war, Immidiately switch ALL builds to Spears (first)followed by Swords or Axes. After the initial Spear in Cap is done I would switch back to the Mids and I would not hesitate to rush a unit at each city with 1 pop (well that is most likely scenario with just 3 citizens any ways)

Harbourboy said:

I think what needs to happen in the next 17 turns is:
- take the settler north to settle (not sure how we resolve exactly where – maybe there is no wrong place)

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I will support any decision as far as bonus food is within the 9 tiles. 5 or more fpt will grow a city much faster than 2 fpt. Growth is power. Since we do not have a religion we will need to build culture via a monument by chopping and wait 15 turns for it to grow. With 5 extra food by this time we will be getting close to or have 3 pop to work all other tiles. With just 2 extra food, we won't even have the second pop. Other thing is of course Iron in the fat cross. Lastly, take a worker with/before the settler and If we are going to settle on a forest see if it is worth chopping it for Nidaros. If it will give 15 or more I would think it is worthy.

Harbourboy said:

- complete reconnaissance of Mongolia
- build some spearmen for defence (and future attack support)
- finish mathematics and research something else (how do we agree on what?)

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Agree on first two and I vote for Alpha since we need it to find out if Kahn is willing to share his kowledge and to go for Lit.

Harbourboy said:

- micromanage commerce output of 4 cities to keep science running hot
- chop the Pyramids after mathematics (but will probably still not be complete within 17 turns)

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Harbourboy, one of the workers should start prechopping, the forests nearest to the Cap. Just remember to stop the worker before it is done and go to the next forest.

Do not let the cap grow to 7 pop until gem is mined and roaded. Wait until it is one turn from growth and let city manager hold growth. If possible, work more mine too.

Harbourboy said:

For the next turnset, we can re-assess our readiness to attack Khan, based on where we find ourselves in relation to his units and resources at that point.

Having not played a successive game before, I am a little unclear on exactly how much agreement is required before we can move on. In the meantime, I will err on the side of caution and wait to at least hear another round of comments from everyone before proceeding (depending on whether Thrallia gets back online or not).

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Once everyone made a choice and we have a majority, we all should live with it and proceed. Since we have 6 active players, in case of a tiecrazyeye: ) We can PM Hawk. If any time during your turn set you feel like the whole team should have a say, please stop and post the issue.

I think you will get a respond from almost all.