Polus
Chieftain
So should we go with Writing? Or Archery? My thoughts are if we go Writing, we will have plenty of things to build (Worker, Settler, Caravan) prior to pumping out Archery, so I think it's worth while to pick up Writing first.
Random SG 01 - The Randomness Begins
- Thread starter Sir Bugsy
- Start date
Optional
Deity
I should have a look at the save first, I'm pretty tired just now, though, but I'm thinking Sailing would also be a consideration, to see if we can meet others - civs as well as CS's. Writing = library and the route to National College, so that's a good route in most games, but I think it's not the first thing I would do here. I guess I'd do Sailing first.
Polus
Chieftain
Turn 12 - Continue to thwart Darius Settler. Decide on going for sailing. Given the aquatic nature of this map, I feel its the best tech.
IBT - Darius desperately tries to escapre our Scout & Warrior noose
Turn 13 - More Dirty Dancing. Decide to send our Scout in the south on the offense due to Decisive Victory prediction, as well as being at 99/100. Victory, but costly. Oh well, not much left to explore on this landmass.
IBT - Darius Dances
Turn 14 - Social Policy pops, adopt Legalism.
IBT - Darius Dances
Turn 15 - Nothing much to report. Our Scout in the south is healing up. Our Warrior/Scout combo up north continues to dance with Darius. Worker is done in 2, Sailing in 8. Carthage isnt growing much, but I like our position. I really think Persia is trapped on a crappy peninsula and we should be able to overwhelm them early.
I'm not sure on the save game decorum, but I haven't advanced. Whoever plays next needs to hit the big blue button.
IBT - Darius desperately tries to escapre our Scout & Warrior noose
Turn 13 - More Dirty Dancing. Decide to send our Scout in the south on the offense due to Decisive Victory prediction, as well as being at 99/100. Victory, but costly. Oh well, not much left to explore on this landmass.
IBT - Darius Dances
Turn 14 - Social Policy pops, adopt Legalism.
IBT - Darius Dances
Turn 15 - Nothing much to report. Our Scout in the south is healing up. Our Warrior/Scout combo up north continues to dance with Darius. Worker is done in 2, Sailing in 8. Carthage isnt growing much, but I like our position. I really think Persia is trapped on a crappy peninsula and we should be able to overwhelm them early.
I'm not sure on the save game decorum, but I haven't advanced. Whoever plays next needs to hit the big blue button.
Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
Here's the line up:
Bugs
Optional
Polus <= just finished dancing with Darius
Teproc <= UP next on Darius' dance card (play 10 turns)
Gurra <= on deck
Bugs
Optional
Polus <= just finished dancing with Darius
Teproc <= UP next on Darius' dance card (play 10 turns)
Gurra <= on deck
Teproc
King
I should be able to play sometime today.
Optional
Deity
Well played, Polus. I see the scout in the south is on the way home, as he should be. With a worker about to start duty he should be protecting Carthage, as we have no other unit available for that.
You haven't bought a better tile to work in the capital, and I would leave that for now anyway, but if you look at Carthage you see why you sometimes do that:
The city governor is an idiot, that's the problem. He has let our cultural expansion go to plain forests and hills, shunning deer, truffles and sheep. The good tiles he'll avoid as long as possible, that's why I find it often needed to simply buy one of those tiles.
The worker can start on the nearest deer next, but if the governor moves on to getting every available ocean tile next, we might still be forced into buying a better tile ourselves.
Since we're poor and at negative gold per turn, it looks like only buying a truffle tile would be a realistic option.
I believe we can pledge protection to Cape Town. They'll probably ask us at some stage to get rid of that barb camp, giving us an opportunity for friend status for a while. Although we can hardly afford building more units now, we first need to be working some lux tiles to cover the cost.
You haven't bought a better tile to work in the capital, and I would leave that for now anyway, but if you look at Carthage you see why you sometimes do that:
Spoiler :
The worker can start on the nearest deer next, but if the governor moves on to getting every available ocean tile next, we might still be forced into buying a better tile ourselves.
Since we're poor and at negative gold per turn, it looks like only buying a truffle tile would be a realistic option.
I believe we can pledge protection to Cape Town. They'll probably ask us at some stage to get rid of that barb camp, giving us an opportunity for friend status for a while. Although we can hardly afford building more units now, we first need to be working some lux tiles to cover the cost.
Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
I agree with buying the tile. I disagree on the timing. Personally I make sure we have positive cash flow before getting that close to zero. The tile will probably be about 50G. That will only give us 6 turns to go positive.
Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
I will be out of pocket from Tuesday, Dec 23rd to Saturday, Dec 27th. We are going to my mother's for Christmas and she doesn't have any internet.
Optional
Deity
Spoiler :
I may have bought a truffle tile asap because if it takes the governor dozens of turns otherwise to get one in it means you're losing 2 gold per turn for dozens of turns. Also we will want to have a truffle improved once we have a second town in.
The governor doesn't do any maths, we have to do that. With any other policy than Tradition we certainly would need to buy tiles, but with Tradition and a monument we can maybe get away without, but we need to check what the
Bless your mother, it's great if you can live without internet.
Sir Bugsy
Civ.D.
Ahh! In that case I would buy it immediately. I suppose it would help if I downloaded the save and looked at it.
Teproc
King
Just played.
I decided not to buy the tile. I understand the arguments in favor, but expanding to the hill is actually fine since we'll be building a settler soon. And of course because we are way short on money.
The Darius dance every turn is implied.
IBT : A pantheon is founded by an unknown civ : Godess of Protection (we're now 9 turns away from a pantheon)
T31 : Nada
T32 : Worker done, start building a Settler in Carthage, adjusting tiles accordingly. I also set Carthage to production focus for the hammer trick. If you guys aren't familiar with it... I'll explain it when I have more time (or someone else will), but it involves getting "free" hammers by locking all tiles and having production focus.
IBT : Darius offer embassy for 1UPT. I accept, because we need money, and he's already trying to forward settle anyway.
T33 : Start a Deer camp. I hesitated with chopping a forest for Settler production, but we wanto have camps asap because of the (hopefully) incoming Pantheon.
Scout kills Barb Warrior
IBT : A pantheon is started by an unknown civ : Stone Circles. Now 11 turns away.
T34 : Borders expand to hill as expected. I send the scout south to verify if the continent ends with Cape Town.
T35 : Nada
T36 : Yep, Cape Town is the end of the continent.
T37 : Nada
IBT : Darius completes Great Library, probably good news, means he doesn't have a big army and is going for peaceful techs. Could be weak to a CB rush.
T38 : Finish Sailing. I went for Archery, since I think early aggression against Darius will be the way to go, especially if we can do it before meeting other civs (ie CB rush).
T39 : Deer camp done.
T40 : Start chopping a forest, borders expand to ... coast. But we would be losing scienc if we had chosen to buy the tile, so I still like not buying it.
A few observations. First of all, next player needs to remember to set the tiles back to normal after the Settler is finished.
Then, here's what I think should be our third city (where the cursor is, don't know how to put fancy dots
) :
Then, I'd like to reiterate that Persepolis is probably underdefended, because Darius took the time to build the Great Library. We should enter Classical with Construction if we want to do that(though obviously we'll still want to prep for National College bygoing Writing next and building Libraries). A cargo ship to Darius (assuming that's a possibility with our second city, not sure if Persepolis is coastal) would give us some income to upgrade Archers into CBs, or maybe send it to Cape Town if the difference in money is negligible (obviously the science is nice to, but sending it to Darius means losing the cargo or waitinglonger to DoW).
I decided not to buy the tile. I understand the arguments in favor, but expanding to the hill is actually fine since we'll be building a settler soon. And of course because we are way short on money.
The Darius dance every turn is implied.
IBT : A pantheon is founded by an unknown civ : Godess of Protection (we're now 9 turns away from a pantheon)
T31 : Nada
T32 : Worker done, start building a Settler in Carthage, adjusting tiles accordingly. I also set Carthage to production focus for the hammer trick. If you guys aren't familiar with it... I'll explain it when I have more time (or someone else will), but it involves getting "free" hammers by locking all tiles and having production focus.
IBT : Darius offer embassy for 1UPT. I accept, because we need money, and he's already trying to forward settle anyway.
T33 : Start a Deer camp. I hesitated with chopping a forest for Settler production, but we wanto have camps asap because of the (hopefully) incoming Pantheon.
Scout kills Barb Warrior
IBT : A pantheon is started by an unknown civ : Stone Circles. Now 11 turns away.
T34 : Borders expand to hill as expected. I send the scout south to verify if the continent ends with Cape Town.
T35 : Nada
T36 : Yep, Cape Town is the end of the continent.
T37 : Nada
IBT : Darius completes Great Library, probably good news, means he doesn't have a big army and is going for peaceful techs. Could be weak to a CB rush.
T38 : Finish Sailing. I went for Archery, since I think early aggression against Darius will be the way to go, especially if we can do it before meeting other civs (ie CB rush).
T39 : Deer camp done.
T40 : Start chopping a forest, borders expand to ... coast. But we would be losing scienc if we had chosen to buy the tile, so I still like not buying it.
A few observations. First of all, next player needs to remember to set the tiles back to normal after the Settler is finished.
Then, here's what I think should be our third city (where the cursor is, don't know how to put fancy dots
) :Spoiler :
Then, I'd like to reiterate that Persepolis is probably underdefended, because Darius took the time to build the Great Library. We should enter Classical with Construction if we want to do that(though obviously we'll still want to prep for National College bygoing Writing next and building Libraries). A cargo ship to Darius (assuming that's a possibility with our second city, not sure if Persepolis is coastal) would give us some income to upgrade Archers into CBs, or maybe send it to Cape Town if the difference in money is negligible (obviously the science is nice to, but sending it to Darius means losing the cargo or waitinglonger to DoW).
Teproc
King
Looks like Steam automatically snipes cursors away. The spot I'm talking about is the forest two tiles NW of the southern Pearls.
1 unit per tile sounds like a generous offer.
Good play! I still think we should have bought the Truffles because it would come with +2 gold just by itself. But I don't think we can afford buying the tile as it looks now. I guess I'm up next. I can't play tomorrow because it's Christmas Eve (we Swedes celebrate one day early) so it's either tonight if you are quick with your input or I'll just wait a few days.
Killing off Darius is a good idea so as to not have him interfere with our business (plus we get hold of the Great Library). If we manage do to that before meeting anyone else we can get away without any diplomacy hits. So I say Writing and then aiming for Construction is a good science plan. I'll try to get a cargo ship out for money asap.
Polus
Chieftain
Agreed on the tech plan. After all the dancing he has caused us, I think it's time to prepare the 
Teproc
King
Right, my point about losing science wasn't true. Still would have been tight, but maybe better. I did regret it when we expanded to that coastal tile, so I was probably wrong, sorry.
Optional
Deity
That's the city governor for ya. I've used a few nasty words for him already.
The problem was here that the good tiles were in the third ring and were forested. The governor doesn't like forested tiles. I was afraid it was going to take dozens of turn before he would come around to acquiring a lux tile, and it's indeed now taking a few dozen turns already. Tadaa.
I haven't looked at the save yet, my working days are a bit long just now, but I know it would be silly to try to go to war just now. Our empire first needs to make some income before it can afford troops.
If we can get Utica (I think that's the name, right?) on the spot we want I would be quite happy to go for the National College with just those two towns.
Although I'm fine with the fact we're researching Archery just now. But an actual war will cost both money and science (I mean if we postpone the NC). It's definitely more expensive to fight an Immortal AI than an Emperor AI. If Darius is really restricted in space but has built the Great Library, he might go on building a few more wonders for us.
And I actually think he will declare on us at some point if we settle all the resources and he has hardly anywhere to go. So I'd be in favour of focusing on our own development and doing some naval scouting while keeping some defensive military around
Maybe it's a bit early for Gurra to play tonight. I'm reading that a few of us want an early war, but how early? I'd say after a National College and after we have met a trading partner so we can now and then can sell a resource to for a bit of cash.
Optional
Deity
I don't think we have trading partners? There's a barb camp between Cape Town and Carthage, so that route would get surely plundered. Cargo Ships are a precarious undertaking early game, we'd need a few Quinqueremes first.
Teproc
King
Well yeah, I'm talking about a CB rush, like 50 turns from now. Hopefully he'll build the Hanging Gardens or something in the mean time.
There is a huge benefit in having a war before meeting other civs, which is that you don't get any warmonger hate. It doesn't need to postpone NC that much, it'd still be in the 95-100 range, which is not early, but it's fine. And I'd still go for Education before anything else, I'm just saying to make an early detour to Construction. Darius only has one city, I don't think it's that well positioned.
My point is : there will be a war, eventually. An AI that can't expand will end up going to has. The earlier we get it done with, the less warmonger hate we'll get. Now if we look at his borders and all of a sudden he has a bunch of Immortals, yeah we won't attack him, but we'll still be happy to have CBs to deal with the attack.
There is a huge benefit in having a war before meeting other civs, which is that you don't get any warmonger hate. It doesn't need to postpone NC that much, it'd still be in the 95-100 range, which is not early, but it's fine. And I'd still go for Education before anything else, I'm just saying to make an early detour to Construction. Darius only has one city, I don't think it's that well positioned.
My point is : there will be a war, eventually. An AI that can't expand will end up going to has. The earlier we get it done with, the less warmonger hate we'll get. Now if we look at his borders and all of a sudden he has a bunch of Immortals, yeah we won't attack him, but we'll still be happy to have CBs to deal with the attack.
Polus
Chieftain
Teproc, you pretty much summed up my thoughts. I'm in no way proposing we go to war in the next few turns, just that I think we should be ready for one sooner rather than later... this town just ain't big enough for the both of us.
Optional
Deity
He won't have Immortals anymore 50 turns from now, it'll be pikes. But by then he will also be long up Optics and very likely has settled south of us - if we don't settle it first.
Check Von Munchhausen II if you like. We were fighting England at around that time. No CB's in that game, though, it was vanilla, but the same difficulty and time frame.
