[BTS] SGOTM 14 - Misfit Gypsy Nuts

[adrianj]

Ok... so it's safe to say the Wizard is not an AI player.

My guesses for our economy are obviously too optimistic Perhaps we should change our focus a little from workers/settlers/workboats to libraries/scientists.

Can we get some more screenshots of our own cities please? The F1 screen makes for an excellent one, and maybe even the F2 screen.

Note:
Turn 102, 325 BC: The Temple of Artemis has been built in a far away land!
Is it possible to see where from the Top 5 Cities screen?

[Grifftavian]

Good turn set, McA!

Originally Posted by McArine

<SNIP>
Turn 98, 425 BC: The revolution has begun!!!
Turn 98, 425 BC: Dorothy adopts Representation!
Turn 98, 425 BC: The anarchy is over! Your government is re-established.<SNIP>

No Anarchy? Is our fearless leader Spiritual?

[Grifftavian]

Some screen shots from the 300 BC save attached.

[adrianj]

Thanks Griff

That's annoying... Ghandi must be the AI that is the furthest away from us. Or is that a good thing, since distance plays a factor in trade route profitibiilty. Hopefully if we get a few cities in the hub we would have a fairly safe route for our GMs to travel through.

Are we at the stage where we start to properly specialise our cities? In other words, we should identify which of our cities we wish to grow (ie, not whipped) for the purpose of producing /. I would propose the Capital for this, and it will also receive some cottages. I think we could also set up Emerald City for commerce. If we start saving population now, then by the time we learn Currency we could quickly build/whip a market and run a couple of Merchants there. This would guarantee a GM, possibly beating New York to be our #2 great person, or maybe even better would be #3, which might be more timely for a CS bulb for example.

Do any of the AI have +diplo mods for favourite civics with eachother?

[Grifftavian]

Originally Posted by adrianj

...Do any of the AI have +diplo mods for favourite civics with eachother?

With the Random Personalities, I don't believe we know what anyone's favorite Civic is at this point. Perhaps we'll discover them as the game goes on. See attached screen shot.

[adrianj]

I was thinking that with the screenshot showing the Matrix of diplomacy modifiers, if you hover the mouse over each cell do you ever see any mention of favourite civics?

[Ozbenno]

OK have caught up! Generally things look like they are going very well.

Obviously we need to find the wizard to plan our final victory...

The economny is obviously a bit of a sticking point but getting Currency (extra trade routes and build wealth) should help with this. Rep boosted scientists should help this in cities with libraries.

Also getting Currency should allow a trade for Alphabet if we wish (obviously nothing to trade now).

Another thing we may want to consider is Colossus. We can work plenty of seas tiles and the extra gold would be handy. We will want to get Metal Casing for forges (and the +3 happy) and with copper Colossus is actually quite cheap to build.

Not sure who is up next but maybe its me (as I was promoted after McArine initally skipped), roster seems a bit out of kilter.

If it is me up then I have it. Will be looking to play on the weekend and have a plan together in the day for comment.

If it isn't then just ignore that last sentence

[Ronnie1]

Well done McArine!

The roster order is....

1) McArine - just played
2) Mighty Dwarf - skipped
3) Ronnie1 - waiting
4) Sleepless - waiting
5) Ozbenno - UP NOW
6) Jericho Hill - on deck
7) Grifftavian - in the hole


Advising only as of September 15th

Adrianj
Conquistador63
JonShaw
da_Vinci

AWOL
ngraner42

Yes we got a bit "jumbled"....

[Ronnie1]

OK, looking at the save now and I have a few suggestions. I am going to go city by city and start at the top of the F1 list and work down.

ML - No changes, Grow and cottage, team up the workers so we finish and work cottages sooner
EC - Build another worker, then Grow and cottage
YBR - WB > Library, chop Lib, grow and cottage
Wash - Get to 19 this turn and build barracks, 2 pop whip barracks next turn, back to Chariots. Or build settler now for hub...but I think this can wait a bit.
NY - No changes
SH - switch to Library NOW, 2 pop whip the Granary when we approach 1/2 full food bar at size 4, finish Library, always work SILVER MINE!
PP - Work Coast tile, finish Monument, 2 pop whip Granary when appropriate > Library
CT - 1 more turn on Gran, switch to Library, 2 pop whip Gran when appropriate, finish Lib, send worker on cows to help with quarry
SL - Whip Monument now(we are working 2 unimproved tiles) > Gran(2 pop whip when appropriate) > WB(overflow from whip) > Library
Sushi - WB > Gran(2 pop whip) > Library

Generally speaking, I think we need to whip our infrastructure where we have food a surplus. By working some commerce tiles where they are = in total output, we can easily get to 20% sustainable science slider. We need to explore more! Move the chariots 1 move at a time so we don't get caught by surprise.

[McArine]

I completely forgot to mention this.

The copper mine we've got, I know we can't pillage it, but we can fort it, so I've started putting up a fort on the copper. If we don't want that, we can just stop it, otherwise it's a way of getting us some warriors.

[Ozbenno]

Originally Posted by McArine

The copper mine we've got, I know we can't pillage it, but we can fort it, so I've started putting up a fort on the copper. If we don't want that, we can just stop it, otherwise it's a way of getting us some warriors.

If the fort is on a river or has a road, the copper will still be connected. Don't have access to the save but can you cottage over the copper if we don't want it now?

[McArine]

Originally Posted by Ozbenno

If the fort is on a river or has a road, the copper will still be connected. Don't have access to the save but can you cottage over the copper if we don't want it now?

It has a road, so it'll still be connected.
The copper is on a hill, so we'll have to wait for windmills to get rid of it...
I guess we'll have to trade it, or just accept archers in our cities.

[adrianj]

Nice summary of our cities Ron all sounds about right.
Can't we just gift away the copper? The copper mine is a nice tile for the city to work. Seems a shame to waste turns building something inferior on top of it.

If noone will accept our copper, then I suppose building archers instead of warriors is not so bad.

[Conquistador 63]

Originally Posted by Ronnie1

OK, looking at the save now and I have a few suggestions. I am going to go city by city and start at the top of the F1 list and work down.

ML - No changes, Grow and cottage, team up the workers so we finish and work cottages sooner
EC - Build another worker, then Grow and cottage
YBR - WB > Library, chop Lib, grow and cottage
Wash - Get to 19 this turn and build barracks, 2 pop whip barracks next turn, back to Chariots. Or build settler now for hub...but I think this can wait a bit.
NY - No changes
SH - switch to Library NOW, 2 pop whip the Granary when we approach 1/2 full food bar at size 4, finish Library, always work SILVER MINE!
PP - Work Coast tile, finish Monument, 2 pop whip Granary when appropriate > Library
CT - 1 more turn on Gran, switch to Library, 2 pop whip Gran when appropriate, finish Lib, send worker on cows to help with quarry
SL - Whip Monument now(we are working 2 unimproved tiles) > Gran(2 pop whip when appropriate) > WB(overflow from whip) > Library
Sushi - WB > Gran(2 pop whip) > Library

Generally speaking, I think we need to whip our infrastructure where we have food a surplus. By working some commerce tiles where they are = in total output, we can easily get to 20% sustainable science slider. We need to explore more! Move the chariots 1 move at a time so we don't get caught by surprise.

I thought we were planning to run cottages in capital and special resources/mines/rep specialists elsewhere?

[Sleepless]

Still no access to save for another few days.

I think we should only concentrate cottages in Munchkin. No real rivers anywhere else. So as most cities have lots of food. Whipping libs and running scientists will give us a much better rate than non riverside cottages. Certainly have to make sure we use all gold/silver/gems all the time. This way the slider is not so important.

[Ronnie1]

Originally Posted by Conquistador 63

I thought we were planning to run cottages in capital and special resources/mines/rep specialists elsewhere?

We were/are, but there are some decent cottage sites that we may want to consider.

If do decide to stick with the specialist mostly approach, then some of the cottage notes need to be changed to chain irrigating!

I am a bit worried that we may be under estimating the length of the game, I hope not.

[adrianj]

I've just had a quick look at the save. Some observations.

As Ron noted also, some cities (Pretty Pachys, Sty Land) are working very average tiles. These cities have an enormous happiness surplus, so I think we should whip them often, at least until the workers have caught up to give them decent tiles to work.

Barracks build in ML? How soon are we planning a war here? I didn't think it was for quite some time, but I guess we need to discuss this more. I think ML could build a monument instead, but no more whipping here as it's probably time to grow the city.

Galley build in EC? I guess one galley either side of our spoke wouldn't hurt for barb galley defence, but otherwise seems like an odd choice for a build. Is it for the purpose of getting lots of overflow, but then overflowing into a barracks? I don't understand, could somebody enlighten me?

Looks like we have a couple of Jewish missionaries heading our way. Do we wish to convert? I would think not yet, but review the situation if we have many missionaries coming our way.

We can OB with the witches of the West. I think we should.

Scientists. ML and EC both have libraries now. I think ML should hire some scientists, but perhaps balance this with working cottages as they come available. EC is a question mark: it could work 2 scientists immediately, but this will reduce our chances of producing a GM. I suggest we assign the scientists anyway and take a gamble on the GM.

Edit to add: Re cottages around EC - I do think this is a good idea, but it's a matter of priorities. If we have nearby available workers then I think a cottage or two would be good here, since the city will keep growing onto average tiles otherwise even while assigning scientists. I didn't look at the irrigation issues when I was looking at the save, and it might be worthwhile to plan our irrigation, especially if we want to get it down towards Washington.

Edit2: YBR - could we build aqueduct->hanging gardens here, whipping workers as appropriate? Nice GE producing pair with the Pyramids

[McArine]

Originally Posted by adrianj

As Ron noted also, some cities (Pretty Pachys, Sty Land) are working very average tiles. These cities have an enormous happiness surplus, so I think we should whip them often, at least until the workers have caught up to give them decent tiles to work.

Barracks build in ML? How soon are we planning a war here? I didn't think it was for quite some time, but I guess we need to discuss this more. I think ML could build a monument instead, but no more whipping here as it's probably time to grow the city.

Galley build in EC? I guess one galley either side of our spoke wouldn't hurt for barb galley defence, but otherwise seems like an odd choice for a build. Is it for the purpose of getting lots of overflow, but then overflowing into a barracks? I don't understand, could somebody enlighten me?

Ok, my bad regarding Pretty Pachys and Sty Land, I didn't whip these cities because I figured it wouldn't matter if I whipped now or later. Overflow would be going into granaries, and as long as the tiles wasn't better, that'd take just as long to get with whipping now or later.

I certainly think barracks are better in ML than a monument. I don't see a reason for giving ML a monument.

Galley was for barb defence. And again barracks, we will be warring at some point, and I think the alternative was a chariot. So I chose a barrack to get us some better troops. Before building more troops. And it's also in the PPP by the way :-)

[adrianj]

Originally Posted by McArine

Ok, my bad regarding Pretty Pachys and Sty Land, I didn't whip these cities because I figured it wouldn't matter if I whipped now or later. Overflow would be going into granaries, and as long as the tiles wasn't better, that'd take just as long to get with whipping now or later.

Perhaps it's not intuitive, ie, surely working any tile is better than no tile. But if the tile is only 2 then the surplus is the same, yet it takes more food to grow to the next pop. I think that is a net loss in efficiency. I think...
For some of these cities it is also desirable to have the monument built sooner so their borders can expand, and claim a few more resources.

I certainly think barracks are better in ML than a monument. I don't see a reason for giving ML a monument.

We're Charismatic. The monument is +1 , which for this city will soon equate to working +1 cottage.

Galley was for barb defence. And again barracks, we will be warring at some point, and I think the alternative was a chariot. So I chose a barrack to get us some better troops. Before building more troops.

It might be worthwhile for the team to decide when the "warring at some point" is.
Given the current state of our economy, it might not be for 30+ turns or so. I don't really know.
I guess EC can build a barracks now mainly because there's nothing else great to build, since it already has key infrastructure like monument, granary, library. But I don't understand the urgency to whip it or overflow into it. Wouldn't a better target for overflow or whip be a worker, and then slow build things like barracks while the city regrows?

And it's also in the PPP by the way :-)

Quite right My bad for not spotting it earlier.

[Ozbenno]

Currently my plan is to have the PPP done tomorrow night and play over the weekend. We are not in any great rush so I assume this will be fine. Any thoughts as to the direction we take in the next few turns, speak now....