GO1 - The Tsarina

Can you post a few screenshots of our current status? That's really what I'd like to see... like 3 or 4 pictures of the main map showing the "regular view" around our Cities with a "regular" amount of zooming (i.e. zooming out so that all Cities fit in the same picture is not what I'm after), so that we can see what our City Sizes are, what build items are in progress, which squares are improved, which squares are being worked...

Be sure to turn on Ctrl + r (resources), Ctrl + t (tiling), and Ctrl + y (yields of squares) before taking the screenshots... three letters which are all conveniently placed next to each other on your keyboard, making them easy to remember.

Also, a quick comment on what you did with Alex would help... i.e. did you trade him a Resource? Did you Open Borders with him?
 
I did get OB and gave him the resource but forgot to scout his land. Screenshots may or may not come, I am kinda leaving home to move to university so life is a little hectic ATM.
 
Fair enough. :)
 
Kent to be precise. If any of you come to England and want to stalk me just go round shouting my (user) name :p
 
So that means woopdeedoo is up and Toxicman is on deck :)
 
If woopdeedoo wants some tips from me, he she will have infinitely more success in getting them if he can give me some screenshots of our "regular screen" view showcasing our cities--proabably about 4 screenshots should be able to fit in all of the Cities, maybe 5 screenshots--basically, what I asked hoplitejoe to provide... read what I asked above if you are confused.
 
I'm slightly nervous, as this is my first SG. If I make any mistakes or something, then I apologise in advance, but I pull the "noob" card.
 
Got the save, had a very brief look. We have warriors spawnbusting by "warrior here" signs that have culture and therefore barb-spawn free zones :confused:

Will also have a look at city MM. Seems we need more workers! I will post a detailed PPP once I have had a chance to give the save a closer look.
 
If woopdeedoo wants some tips from me, he will have infinitely more success in getting them if he can give me some screenshots of our "regular screen" view showcasing our cities--proabably about 4 screenshots should be able to fit in all of the Cities, maybe 5 screenshots--basically, what I asked hoplitejoe to provide... read what I asked above if you are confused.

Dhoomstriker, darling, I am not a "he" but a "she" ;)
 
Got the save, had a very brief look. We have warriors spawnbusting by "warrior here" signs that have culture and therefore barb-spawn free zones :confused:
Well, the signs were put there by me during my turnset... which was a while ago. Some of them may have expired, although I did remove most of the expired signs before hoplitejoe played.

Chances are that things have changed, since signs are static while the game itself is dynamic as the turns go by.


I will post a detailed PPP once I have had a chance to give the save a closer look.
Well, sweet woopdeedoo, pictures (screenshots of the current situation of our Cities from the perspective of the "main screen" view) posted along with your PPP would help you to reach the awesome bar.


Seems we need more workers!
That possibility sounds likely. Now that we have the Wonders that we really cared about, we could certainly pump out some more Workers.

I think that the only other Wonder that we were targeting was The Colossus; Mosher had queued-it up with 0 Hammers in it but I swapped it for The Pyramids, as a lack of Happiness was our biggest issue at the time. Now that we have The Pyramids, you can probably find a city in which to squeeze The Colossus (perhaps in the City to the south-west of our capital that built The Pyramids?).
 
Ok, so I had a deeper look and I apologise for moaning about the warrior standing around, there was only one :blush:

I disagree with Dhoom's city placement on the Eastern island mainly because it loses out on :hammers: tiles that would make the city worth more than just a :culture: bridge. I would place it like so:



Since we are in anarchy, I could get really good views of everything but this is what is currently being built:







You will notice Yakutsk needs loads of worker love to clear those jungles and cottage spam the riverside tiles like crazy. I also really like this spot:


Those two gold resources sure look yummy to me. My only concern is feeding the place. More scouting in that area might reveal some food which would make that city loverly! ;)

I want to go into full military production. Our army is pathetic:



Tech Math (1t)>Constr>Alpha. HbR for Stables and HA's could also be worth considering. Once Alpha is in, we can also trade for it with Alex. All the coastal towns will get their lighthouses and other required infra but, like mentioned before, I wanna get our puny army a bit bigger and better.

Also, we need IW to get those nasty jungle tiles removed. As mentioned before, a few more workers wouldn't hurt either :)

I notice that the one city (Yetakarinaberg?) had a long build queue: granary>lighthouse>forge. Although I don't disagree with the queue itself, is it common practice to do this? I'm only asking as I am relatively new to SGs and was wondering... That is nothing more than a curiosity from my side.
 
Ok, so I had a deeper look and I apologise for moaning about the warrior standing around, there was only one
Well, just remember that squares hidden in the fog-of-war can be spawn-busted by any unit that is 2 squares away in any direction (horizontal, vertical, diagonal, or any combination of 2 of those), so feel free to readjust the Warrior distribution.

It wouldn't hurt to get a Chariot to scout up to the north part of our continent.


I disagree with Dhoom's city placement on the Eastern island mainly because it loses out on :hammers: tiles that would make the city worth more than just a :culture: bridge.
Again, it's all about the Food. We lack it completely on that island. At best, we can have a 2-Food-surplus (generally you want a minimum of a 3-Food-surplus even after working your Mines unless you are at your Happiness cap). With only a 2-Food-surplus, a City built there is never going to work a Mine.

If it does, the City will stagnate growth, which won't be worth it. It would be better to slowly grow the City off of Grassland Cottages (that's why we are bringing a Settler AND a Worker to the island, right? Hint, hint, if that's not already in progress), followed by building and whipping a Granary, followed by building and whipping Lighthouse, so that we can grow off of the Coast squares. Growing into additional Coast squares will beat working a Mine and slowing or halting growth.

Settling on top of the Marble nets us 2 free Hammers in the City... the City Centre square will have 3 Hammers. Since we would have 1 Forest in the fat cross, which would give us 4 Hammers (for a multiple of 4 Hammers to go along with a potentially late-whipped Forge or to go along with Organized Religion once we finally get a Religion and spread it around), we might as well leave that Forest but put Cottages on the other 2 Grassland squares there.

The island itself is junk except that:
a) It gives us a Cultural Bridge, which could open up trading with AIs, Foreign Trade Routes, or just more land to settle
AND
b) We could use another off-island City (i.e on top of the Marble) to partner with The Great Lighthouse, giving us a second set of 2-Commerce Domestic Trade Routes in every City... the first set set of 2-Commerce Domestic Trade Routes comes from the Sheep + Copper off-continent City
AND
c) It has a Marble Resource which we currently lack


Since we are in anarchy, I could get really good views of everything but this is what is currently being built:
It's a good enough picture. What's important to note is that we could probably whip some Granaries. The ideal time to whip a Granary is when the Foodbox is roughly 40% full. The second most ideal time to whip a Granary in a City with at least 1 Food Resource is "as soon as possible." ;)

So, feel free to do so (let's hope that we're in Slavery :lol:).


You will notice Yakutsk needs loads of worker love to clear those jungles and cottage spam the riverside tiles like crazy.
Ummmm, we will need to learn Iron Working first and our tech rate was pretty pitiful the last time that I checked. It won't hurt to hire 2 Scientists in Cities that have Libraries, since The Pyramids' Representation will make them extremely good, particularly since we still have many Great People left to generate, so the Great People Points will be of great value, too.


If you are going to hire 2 Scientists in a City, I would probably NOT whip in said City, but if you aren't ready to hire Scientists (no Library, not enough population points, etc), feel free to whip in said City.

The Great Person Farm should NOT be hiring Scientists yet. Now is the time to get its infrastructure built... we can hire Scientists or other Specialists there in the future after we have built the National Epic. Now, of course, if you've built all of the infrastructure that we can currently build (Granary, Lighthouse, and Library) in the Great Person Farm and you are approaching the City's Happiness cap, then sure, hire some Scientist Specialists, but otherwirse, that City should focus on "getting ready" to hire Specialists at a future point in time after the National Epic is built.


I also really like this spot:

Those two gold resources sure look yummy to me. My only concern is feeding the place. More scouting in that area might reveal some food which would make that city loverly! ;)
I agree with you on scouting the area for Food Resources and therefore I feel that we can't yet decide on a City location for the Gold Resources.

The spot that you have labelled could be good but it could be really bad. Right now, I see no Food Resources, so, for a long time at least (until after we learn Civil Service and spend a lot of Worker turns), there will only be enough Food to work 1 of the 2 Gold Mines and we will also stagnate our growth in doing so.

Thus, we really want to hunt for additional Food to partner with the Gold Resources before we decide on a spot to settle. Feel free to save the game partway through your turnset and post a screenshot once you have explored the area, asking for feedback on where the best spot to settle would be.

Minimally, I would want to check on all sides of the Gold Resources in every direction, just to see what our Food-to-partner-with-the-Gold-Resources options might be.


I want to go into full military production. Our army is pathetic:
Our army being pathetic isn't an issue.

I have no problem with you building a Military. Just, if you're going to do so, go relatively all-out and plan to build a stack of roughly 10 units that should stay within our Cultural Borders near to Alex. We don't really need extra defenders, but if you want to go to war with Alex, we can certainly do so--just plan to have several Cities building Military Units.

As I said to hoplitejoe, skip the Barracks. There's no point, as we'll roll over Alex with roughly 10 units without the need for Barracks. Since we still appear to be isolated, we would stop building units at that point, so the Barracks would just be lost Hammers that could have been invested in something better (like Workers, more Settlers, a navy, whatever).


Tech Math (1t)>Constr>Alpha. HbR for Stables and HA's could also be worth considering.
Horse Archers are way overkill. Just build up a large stack (10+ units) before declaring war and the stack of units can safely be a mix of Axemen plus Chariots, plus possibly 1 Spearman if you think that Alex has a Horse Resource.

Since we'll probably only fight 1 war for a long time, just like the Barracks, investing in Horse Archers would be overkill and it wouldn't be an investment that would pay off, since we'd have no use to keep building them.


Once Alpha is in, we can also trade for it with Alex.
No such luck. Unless Alex has met another AI, he will not trade techs with us. The exception would be if we could get him up to a Friendly Attitude, which isn't going to happen without a shared Religion. Since neither of us have a Religion, it isn't going to happen at all.

Alphabet is another investment where we won't see a payoff.

After Math, I'd say that your choices are:
a) Calendar
OR
b) Currency

I'd go for Calendar, myself, since we're still gonig to be hurting badly for Happiness and we have Incense and I think a Dye Resource if we settle another City to the north-east.

Currency would be great to get after Calendar, since it is +1 Commerce in each City. That's not amazing when you have 2 or 3 Cities but is pretty powerful when you have 10 or more Cities like we have.


All the coastal towns will get their lighthouses and other required infra but, like mentioned before, I wanna get our puny army a bit bigger and better.
Pick one of those two goals, but don't pick both.

Either Lighthouses or Axemen + Chariots. If we're going to build a Military, we should plan to put it to use against Alex. If we're going to build Lighthouses, then we only need 1 Warrior or Chariot per City, plus 2 or 3 other units maximum to cover the spawn-busting in the northern areas and to explore to the north.

Any more than that could just drain our economy or, minimally, would have been Hammers better spent elsewhere... unless we plan to build a stack, in which case we can gain Cities, Gold from capturing Cities, and Great General Points.


Also, we need IW to get those nasty jungle tiles removed. As mentioned before, a few more workers wouldn't hurt either :)
I would still put a lack of Happiness as our #1 issue, which is why I'd go after Calendar next. Getting our tech rate to increase would be our #2 issue, so I'd then get Currency.

We may not even need to work many Cottages--once our Cities get near their Happiness caps and if they have already whipped Libraries, then they can just hire 2 Scientists.

1 Scientist with Representation = 6 Flasks and 3 Great People Points
1 Grassland Cottage = 2 Food and 1 Commerce... even once it is a Village it will still only be 2 Food and 3 Commerce

While we will eventually want to get some Cottages (or Farms), there's no real rush, as we can hire super-powered Specialists when Cities run out of good squares to work.

It migiht be different if we had Riverside Cottages, but I don't remember there being a lot of Rivers near the Jungles, so I wouldn't concern myself with Iron Working for a while.


I notice that the one city (Yetakarinaberg?) had a long build queue: granary>lighthouse>forge. Although I don't disagree with the queue itself, is it common practice to do this? I'm only asking as I am relatively new to SGs and was wondering... That is nothing more than a curiosity from my side.
I'm not sure myself. I probably queued those buildings up, since I tend to do so. You're obviously free to ignore any and all of my advice and are free to change whatever build items you want.

If the City has those things queued-up, it was probably for a reason, such as doing so in the Great Person Farm, so that we don't accidentally build Military Units or other non-crucial build items in that City. We want to get it ready to build the National Epic as soon as it possibly can.
 
It wouldn't hurt to get a Chariot to scout up to the north part of our continent.

There is already a char ready for scouting so I'm definitely in agreement there.

Again, it's all about the Food. We lack it completely on that island. At best, we can have a 2-Food-surplus (generally you want a minimum of a 3-Food-surplus even after working your Mines unless you are at your Happiness cap). With only a 2-Food-surplus, a City built there is never going to work a Mine.
You make a good point. Although placing a city on the marble irks me (it just does :dunno: ) I will bow down to your feeling here as I do agree on the food/never work quarry thing...

It would be better to slowly grow the City off of Grassland Cottages (that's why we are bringing a Settler AND a Worker to the island, right? Hint, hint, if that's not already in progress)
They are en route :D

Ummmm, we will need to learn Iron Working first and our tech rate was pretty pitiful the last time that I checked.

After Math, I'd say that your choices are:
a) Calendar
OR
b) Currency

I'd go for Calendar, myself, since we're still gonig to be hurting badly for Happiness and we have Incense and I think a Dye Resource if we settle another City to the north-east.

You make a fair point re trading with Alex which I forgot to take into account :blush:.

I agree with you on scouting the area for Food Resources and therefore I feel that we can't yet decide on a City location for the Gold Resources.
Agreed, gonna send that char as mentioned above.

Feel free to save the game partway through your turnset and post a screenshot once you have explored the area, asking for feedback on where the best spot to settle would be.
Cool. Will do.

Our army being pathetic isn't an issue.

I have no problem with you building a Military. Just, if you're going to do so, go relatively all-out and plan to build a stack of roughly 10 units that should stay within our Cultural Borders near to Alex. We don't really need extra defenders, but if you want to go to war with Alex, we can certainly do so--just plan to have several Cities building Military Units.
I would like to just go ahead and ruin him, get it over with :devil:

As I said to hoplitejoe, skip the Barracks. There's no point, as we'll roll over Alex with roughly 10 units without the need for Barracks. Since we still appear to be isolated, we would stop building units at that point, so the Barracks would just be lost Hammers that could have been invested in something better (like Workers, more Settlers, a navy, whatever).
Ok.

Horse Archers are way overkill. Just build up a large stack (10+ units) before declaring war and the stack of units can safely be a mix of Axemen plus Chariots, plus possibly 1 Spearman if you think that Alex has a Horse Resource.
I have heard from a some other players that mixing 1:move: and 2:move: units in a stack is not a good idea. Better get 2 stacks, for arguments' sake, say: 8 Axes and 3 Spears and (if needed although possibly not) a 2nd stack of chariots and HA's.

Since we'll probably only fight 1 war for a long time, just like the Barracks, investing in Horse Archers would be overkill and it wouldn't be an investment that would pay off, since we'd have no use to keep building them.
Which I am in some agreement about. I do like having some promoted units but am willing to concede to your counsel ;)

Currency would be great to get after Calendar, since it is +1 Commerce in each City. That's not amazing when you have 2 or 3 Cities but is pretty powerful when you have 10 or more Cities like we have.
Ok, agreed on this. So tech would be Math>Calendar>Currency? I do believe we need to do something about IW sooner, rather than later or the jungle cities are going to cost us too much for no benefit other than simply being there.


Pick one of those two goals, but don't pick both.Either Lighthouses or Axemen + Chariots. If we're going to build a Military, we should plan to put it to use against Alex. If we're going to build Lighthouses, then we only need 1 Warrior or Chariot per City, plus 2 or 3 other units maximum to cover the spawn-busting in the northern areas and to explore to the north.

Any more than that could just drain our economy or, minimally, would have been Hammers better spent elsewhere... unless we plan to build a stack, in which case we can gain Cities, Gold from capturing Cities, and Great General Points.
I vote for building an army and getting rid of Alex.

I would still put a lack of Happiness as our #1 issue, which is why I'd go after Calendar next. Getting our tech rate to increase would be our #2 issue, so I'd then get Currency.
Ok.
 
You make a good point. Although placing a city on the marble irks me (it just does ) I will bow down to your feeling here as I do agree on the food/never work quarry thing...
One way to think about it is as follows:
If we settle the island City on a Grassland square, you and I both agree that since we have no Food Resources and no Farms, we will never work a Mine. Thus, the City will get 1 Hammer per turn, plus 1 Hammer per turn for every Grassland Forest worked.

However, if we settle on top of the Marble, we will get 3 Hammers per turn, plus 1 Hammer per turn for every Grassland Forest worked.

So, setting on the Marble = 2 free Hammers per turn.


Another important thing to try and do is see if you can build another Settler. Once you drop off the Marble City's Settler and a Worker, it would be great to get that other Settler and a Chariot/Axeman on the Galley. That way, the Galley can explore the Cultural Bridge and if you can find a decent spot to settle another City, we'll have our 3rd off-continent City, which we desperately want for the 3rd 2-Commerce Domestic Trade Route for every City in our empire.

The sooner that we can get said 3rd off-continent City settled, the better.


I have heard from a some other players that mixing 1:move: and 2:move: units in a stack is not a good idea. Better get 2 stacks, for arguments' sake, say: 8 Axes and 3 Spears and (if needed although possibly not) a 2nd stack of chariots and HA's.
I'm not sure why someone would make that comment. A stack of mixed attackers is a good thing to have.

1 Chariot is better than 1 Spearman when attacking, since the two units have the same hitpoints, but the Chariot gets a small chance to retreat for free. In addition, the Chariot is slightly cheaper to build, so you can build more of them or else have more Hammers to spend on other build items.

If we were an Aggressive Civ, then we would get a free Combat I promotion with Spearmen, so I might see the Spearmen being potentially better in that case, but otherwise, unless the enemy has a Horse or Ivory Resource, the Chariots will be better attackers against Archers.

Now, it can be argued that an AI that has Copper or Iron can build a Spearman, which murders Chariots, in which case you'd rather have a Spearman attacking. Of course, you'd much prefer to just have another Axeman in that case, except if the enemy has Horses and therefore Chariots of its own, since Chariots murder Axemen.

Basically, it's a rock-paper-scissors game.

Alex gets a bonus to his Axemen in that the vulnerability to Chariots is removed. So, you lose the ability to kick the butts of his Axemen easily with Chariots.

However, if he only has Archer defenders, then you still would rather have Chariots than Spearmen, for the reasons that I mentioned above (extra retreat bonus on the Chariots plus their cheaper cost) in addition to the fact that you can build Chariots in your "farthest-away Cities" and they can arrive at the same time as Axemen or Spearman built in your "closer Cities" can arrive, allowing you to launch the attack sooner than you would be able to had you build Axemen and Spearmen in your farther-away Cities.

If he does have Axemen (aka Phalanx) defenders, then Axemen or Chariots are better than Spearmen to attack, since Spearmen will get murdered when attacking Phalanx.

However, if he does have Spearmen defenders, then Axemen or Spearmen are best, as Chariots will get murdered.

If he does have Horses (and thus Chariots) of his own, then you will want at least one, maybe two, Spearmen in your stack, so that you can still use the "best on attack" Axemen units, without worrying about the Axemen dying on defence.


Basically, scouting his lands will help a lot, to know what types of units we will face.

The simplest plan, though, is just to build a mix of units, with the focus on building Chariots in the Cities that are "farthest away from the front lines." It's hard to go wrong with a mixed group of attackers.


The 2 movement points versus 1 movement point will have no bearing whatsoever on the attack odds, so it's not a consideration to worry about, other than for the logistics (movement) of further-away troops getting to the front lines in time, or the possibility of being able to attack Archers that move from one City to the other. However, those points still aren't related to attacking in a stack, so I will have to say that the information that you received about not mixing units with different movement points in a stack is just plain wrong.



Which I am in some agreement about. I do like having some promoted units but am willing to concede to your counsel
I don't foresee us fighting enough battles with a single unit to be able to get the desired 10 Experience Points to unlock our Heroic Epic.

If we don't find any other AIs until after we learn Astronomy, then whether or not our units get 3 additional Experience Points won't matter in the long run, since those units will probably just remain as Military Police units and may never see a war again.

I used to think that I should never build a unit without building a Barracks first. I used to build a Barracks before even building my starting Warriors. Experience has taught me to give up this rule and I have benefited greatly by removing this rule from my playbook.



So tech would be Math>Calendar>Currency?
Sounds good to me.


I do believe we need to do something about IW sooner, rather than later or the jungle cities are going to cost us too much for no benefit other than simply being there.
Chances are that Alex will research it for us. If we stay at war with him after killing most of his Cities but leave him with 1 City, we will either be able to get a small discount on researching Iron Working later or else, if we do get Alphabet (which we would probably only do if we met at least 1 other AI), then we might have a chance to demand Iron Working from him for peace.

He might not give us the FULL value of Iron Working, but say that we do end up researching Alphabet and he won't give us Iron Working for Peace... we can start to research Iron Working and then every turn, check to see if he will give a "partially researched" Iron Working tech to us for peace. Over time, we'll get less and less value for receiving Iron Working in trade and therefore we'll eventually find a point where he'll give us at least part of the research of Iron Working for peace.

Of course, you could also just kill him and doing so would be fine, too, as long as we get our 3rd off-continent City settled within a reasonable timeframe (maybe sometime near the start of the turnset that comes after your turnset).



I vote for building an army and getting rid of Alex.
Fine by me. We probably won't end up researching Alphabet anyway, so there's very little point in keeping him around, except for the Trade Routes.

If we get the 3rd off-continent City, then we won't even need him for the Trade Routes, so he'll have virtually no use to us alive.

The only use at that point would be a few free Flasks on research of the techs that he has already learned. However, on this difficulty level, that concept won't apply to many techs, so this point is rather negligible and is not worth keeping him alive for.
 
So I played, very uneventful. We are almost at Calendar. Have seen some Dutch borders but couldn't contact yet. We have an army that is now big enough to destroy Alex. I will leave it to the next player to position the stack and attack. Two screens, One of North of the Gold hills:



And the second is of this lovely Island, just North of Alex's "empire":



I made a couple of :smoke: moves, sending explorers in th ewrong direction etc but it shouldn't affect the game too much.

The Save:
 

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I'd like to be the 7th player.
Send me a pm though when I have to play my round, as I can sometimes forget such things :blush:
 
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