LK52 - Deity - Japan, Small World

I get to start it early due to not enough FTF games at the moment.

The civ is Japan.
The world is small, 40% land with annoying roaming barbs.
We will have the typical 5 rivals.


4000 BC - We draw a good food start with a game right next to the capital. Kyoto is formed popping the first hut - we get a free warrior who starts marching east. I want to save the forest chop for the granary, so I will improve the bonus grassland first.

3900 BC - Marching east quickly finds a coast line, so we begin heading south.

3800 BC - Jumping to the mountain up north with the second warrior confirms what I suspected. Tundra wasteland to the north, but at least the south has ivory.

3600 BC - Another warrior is completed who will be our third exploring warrior. I will pass on the hut to the north - deity huts usually suck unless expansionist.

3350 BC - Again I pass on a hut - I really hate deity huts in case you can't tell.

3300 BC - We have first contact with America. The only deal I can get of value is The Wheel for Bronze worker. I will wait a turn till pottery completes and try again.

3250 BC - This deal works out better - The Wheel, and $1/turn gets us Masonry and $6. We were just a couple bucks short of buying Masonry with cash. We have no logical 40-turn tries, so I turn of science for the moment. If we don't find a 3rd civ we could have problems.

3000 BC - America now has Mysticism, but we can't buy it. Poly is a great 40-turn tech.

Summary:
Where are the other civs? I am starting to the bad feeling is it just us and America.


Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LK52-3000BC.zip

LKendter
Sirian (currently playing) - Find us another civ please
T-hawk (on deck)
ControlFreak
hotrod0823


Our beginning lands, which resources / luxuries circled.

FTF? I am not sure what that is? Are you playing in your annual board game tourney?

Looks like some good land except for haveing only 1 river.

Did you give any thought to moving the settler away from the hut (rather than settling immediately) to give a shot at getting a settler by popping the hut later? I tried that in a recent PBEM game and actually got nothing. A warrior is better than nothing.

Hotrod

FTF = Face To Face.

Yes, I am at my annual board game tourney. Got slapped around big time with War At Sea this morning.

I didn't think of trying anything fancy with the setter.

Games where the player shares a continent with only one opponent often make for the most challenging and memorable stories. RBE2 (after the Zulu were gone), RBE6, LotR5...

BTW, I'd like to swap with ControlFreak in the roster. Sirian and I can both get rather adamant about SG tactics and plans so we might be a bit better off separated.

Nay you just want to keep the Diety newbiees separate.

I was kind of liking following T-hawk.

Actually now would be a good time to mention that weekends I'm offline (in case you didn't read my status.) I can get it tomorrow (assuming Sirian plays it) and post Monday.

Other thought would be to move HotRod up to follow Sirian and then keep the rest the same. I wouldn't get it until Monday.

LKendter
Sirian (currently playing) - Find us another civ please
hotrod0823 (on deck)
T-hawk
ControlFreak


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Hopefully the above keeps everyone happy.
I won't change the order again.

I may or may not get to this until the weekend myself. I am entertaining this weekend. Will let you know my status when my time comes up.

Hotrod

IT 3000BC: No food in the box? Shouldn't we have slowed the food so the granary would complete while city was still size 2? The forest chop will register before the tiles are counted. I swap from the grassland to a forest so the granary will complete next turn.

2950BC: Granary completes. Two food in box. Irrigating the game tile, which will come online prior to the fourth turn. I can fill up the food with 2-2-2-3-3-3-3, or I can do 2-2-3-3-4-4. I opt for the former. Temple due in six turns.

2900BC: Barb comes out of fog to chase our middle scout. I fortify in the jungle.

2850BC: Our middle scout is defeated 0-3. Another barb comes out of the fog to chase our western scout. I opt to pop the hut in the area, but it turns up empty.

2670BC: Temple completed, start worker. Lux dropped to 0.

2630BC: Our west scout still being chased. He spots another hut, on a hill. I decide to go after it. Our conscript in the south moves next to a barb in the fog. Blah. Barbs all over the fricken place, but thankfully all far from home.

2590BC: Pop the hut in the west, yokels. Our unit in the south dodges a bullet as the barb moves past him toward the nearby American town, newly founded. Our conscript moves away from the barb, next to a barb camp and a hut! Worker trained at Kyoto, starts settler.

2550BC: Our western barb wins 2-0 vs one attacker, the others do not pester him. I fortify on the hill. Our conscript pops the hut, nothing there.



We have entirely too many forests and only the one bg tile. If this were my game, I'd train a third worker next, then the settler, and do some chopping in there soon. I haven't done a 3-worker start since Epic18. I put it on settler, though. Up to Hotrod what to do next.

I only lost the one scout (so far) and the one lost was the one who popped no huts. Go figure. There is an American scout moving around north of Kyoto now, going to grab the huts up there. Here's hoping no American cities magically pop up near us.

Spotted horses, but not likely within our reach. No sign of other AI's. Could still be there, but does not seem likely. LOTS of land, though. This won't be RBE2 Redux.

2550BC


- Sirian

Originally posted by Sirian
No sign of other AI's. Could still be there, but does not seem likely. LOTS of land, though. This won't be RBE2 Redux.

Click to expand...

This makes me thinks settler, to get a city with barracks. War will be coming early with only one other civ.

LKendter
Sirian
hotrod0823 (currently playing)
T-hawk (on deck)
ControlFreak

What if we wait until the AM scout is near the hut and then pop it ourselves? If barbs come out they will kill the scout first giving us time to fortify or run away? This also gives us a (small) chance at getting something useful. (Not forgetting to switch settler build to something else first.)

I agree with a settler next.

There is a 1 tile choke south of the ivory, FWIW. Won't preserve a lot of land but at least allows us to focus settling towards the West first. The other neck needs at least 4 units to block. The good defensive positions would be the hill and three forests making a V shape. That would give the AI a lot more land than us I suspect. But this being diety on a small map, I think I would be happy if we settled all the north of those two points without war.

Got it

Lk52:

2550 BC (0): After a bit of thought I decide to leave it as a settler. I am not sure the direction to put him after he completes but he will be done in a few turns. Abe has WC,BW and Mysticism but we can afford nothing.

2510 BC (1): Warrior scout on the hill dies in the West. Feeling like my luck has to change I frag the camp for fear that a horse will generate and kill me sooner than later. +25 gold. We can buy WC or Bronze for all our gold and all our gpt so I wait. Kyoto grows. At max food we grow in 3 settler in 6 on Max food will have to MM again to see if I can get a settler in 3 as well. I think I fall short. MM to go 4/4. Lux to 10%.

2470 BC (2): zzz = continue to move warrior in the south.

2430 BC (3): Irriagating the regular grass to bring water East.

2390 BC (4): MM for gold settler and growth in 1. Abes prices are still too steep.

2350 BC (5): Build a settler starts a warrior to continue to explore the west. Now the question is where to put the settler. After a long deliberation I decide on the river to the south.

2310 BC (6): Continue to move the settler south. The warrior in the south finds that it is an empty peninsula.

2270 BC (7): More movement. Still holding off on trades with abe. He just to Alphabet and we can't afford it.

2230 BC (8): Build a warrior starts a settler. MM to go 5/5. Lux to 10%.

2190 BC (9): Found Osaka on the river West of the hill. Start a warrior. Start a forest chop on the river forest.

2150 BC (10): Warrior is heading west. The hut is stil on the map but I think Abes scout claimed it and it just hasn't been updated for us. I am pretty sure we can go settler, settler but I didn't want to chance not having another warrior available.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/LK52-2150BC.zip



I did not make any deals with Abe. Didn't want to pay 2nd civ prices.

Is it time to start researching? It looks like 2nd will be our best price.

================================

LKendter
Sirian
hotrod0823
T-hawk (currently playing)
ControlFreak (on deck)

I do got it, will play sometime tonight.

Inherited turn -

I'm confused as to why Kyoto is set for +2 food to grow in 3 turns instead of +3 to grow in 2.

Besides the game at Kyoto, nary a food bonus within a thousand miles! Gotta keep Kyoto growing and pumping settlers at max possible rate...

BTW, the worker clearing forest has got bad timing - the job will complete on the same turn as (not after) Osaka builds the warrior, either wasting the shields or Osaka will have to swap to a building. However, I think that Kyoto will get the shields...

And I think we do need to do some self-research, and I think it's gotta be full-speed up the Writing branch, so we go to max on Alphabet.

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2070 BC: Exploring warrior finds wheat on grass to the northwest.

2030 BC: Settler sets out for the wheat, but a barb camp just popped up nearby. I pull Kyoto's warrior for a one-two punch to make sure we clear it. Kyoto starts barracks.

1910 BC: BOTH of our warriors lose attacking the barb camp. We now have 0 military units at home.

1830 BC: Tokyo founded at the wheat. I counted the turns badly at Kyoto, though; the forest chop is due to complete this turn but both Tokyo and Osaka are due to complete a warrior this turn. Kyoto swaps to settler and Osaka to barracks, hoping that we can survive long enough to build a warrior before any barb units get here.

I think the forest shields will go to Kyoto... and they do.

[dance] America frags the barb camp for us.

1750 BC: Osaka builds warrior, which attacks the last barb unit there - and loses 3-0. Our worker there has to move away. Osaka will get sacked this turn. I think getting rid of our gold before it gets pillaged is a good idea; we pay 102 gold to Abe for the half of Alphabet that we hadn't finished researching.

America does not have Writing. I would love to sell it to him at monopoly price (for cash) so we start max research on it; due in 34 right now but that will drop once we replace our MPs and drop lux tax. Next leader could switch this to Warrior Code instead so we can fight against barbs or go ahead with Writing.

Here's a tentative dot map:



Red dot is probably highest priority; it pulls in a ton of bonus grassland and will be a powerful city (granary-barracks-military...) Red with light blue is about the only way to avoid wasting tiles in there. White dot would be very nice to fix the border; if we don't get that, settle on dark blue instead and then move purple one east. Yellow and lavender are hopeful luxury-grabbing sites (lavender is on incense) and black is filler. The two dirt-colored dots are low priority and will depend on the exact terrain in there.


I left the settler unmoved; he can go either to green dot (which may or may not be safe from barbs), red dot (ditto although a camp was just fragged by that American warrior), or try to make it down to white dot.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lk52-1750bc.zip

Edit: oh, and to avoid the problems plaguing most every new SG, next leader should play to 1500 BC. Fifteen Hundred. That's ten turns from now. Not 1550 BC or 1525 BC or 1450 BC.

If I might make a suggestion, we are going to continue to have barbarian troubles. There is no research done, having just bought out a tech. Perhaps we should research bronze working or warrior code. Would not take that long compared to writing, and we'd get second civ discount and also better start preparing for the likely war, which although probably not likely while lots of land is open, could still come upon us suddenly. It's not like we will get much trade value for writing. Anything we trade for, we'd be paying monopoly jack-up prices on in return.

- Sirian

America has plenty of cash on hand (250+), and selling Writing for monopoly cash value would pay off well once we meet other civs and can use the cash to buy devalued techs. And barracks are cheap; Kyoto's building vet warriors now which fare okay against barbs (and defend just as well as archers against mobile horsemen and are less painful to lose.) Writing gets us closer sooner to Map Making and Republic. And finally, it will really not take all that long to push settlers out to each of the coastlines and get rid of the barb problem that way.

That's the argument for Writing anyway. Sirian covered the argument for WC well, and there's also the fact that Writing's quite useless in the short term if America does research it before us. I'm really on the fence as to which tech to research, so I left it up for the next leader. WC's the safe bet, Writing's the gambit.

Red dot is probably highest priority; it pulls in a ton of bonus grassland and will be a powerful city (granary-barracks-military...)

I know T-hawk will disagree, but I would like to skip the granary. We really need to ramp up military production - both for barbs, and the inventiable fight with America.

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My vote is warrior code - we don't have much production and can't afford to keep throwing away 10 shields for no result.

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LKendter (on deck)
Sirian
hotrod0823
T-hawk
ControlFreak (currently playing)

Don't forget that the granary aids whipping as well, and can almost pay for itself in shields by the end of the despotism era. If we have 50 turns from city founding to war, assuming the granary is completed around turn 20 right before growing to size 3, the granary will give 3 extra growths in 30 turns; whip out three archers with that and it pays for itself in shields, and then you have a granary in place as well. Gross oversimplification (whipping is rarely worth exactly 20 shields, for one) but that's the general idea.

Cities past this one should skip the granary for now, but for a low-food mega-shield location like this a granary is a no-brainer IMO.

Throwing 10 shields for no result is better than throwing 20 for no result when a horseman pops out and kills the archer.

I usually pick the gambit option when presented with such a choice, but if the team wants the surer thing of WC (are we agreed that that's better than Bronze for barb fights?) I won't complain.

I'm just being talkative here (bored browsing the forums tonight), don't confuse that with argumentative