Random SG 01 - The Randomness Begins

[Teproc]

That's definitely a possibility. We can churn out a second Settler relativel fast though, thanks to all that forest.

As far as Pikemen go... he's not guaratneed to have them, though likely since he'll probably be going up the tech tree. The AI is bad at upgrading so he probably still will have Immortals lying around, and maybe a few Pikemen. Pikemen are tough, but enough CBs deal with them. I mean yeah, if he goes heavy military, we should probably switch to a more defensive stance, but that still involves prioritizing Construction and a few CBs (though less than if we're going offensive).

 

[Gurra09]

I'm back from christmas stuff now and ready to play! Just so you know I haven't disappeared... downloading the save now.

 

[Gurra09]

Turn 41: Dancing with Darius continues.

Turn 42: We pledge to protect Cape Town and our Scout gets promotion Survivalism I after fighting with a Barbarian Archer. Settler is finished in Carthage and Granary begins construction. Worker chops down the forest which chops a turn off of the Granary.

Turn 43: Our Scout kills the Barbarian Archer that has been harassing Cape Town and we gain 12 influence with them. There is some more dancing and I see a Persian scout that could possibly interrupt the dancing and let their Settler through. I sent the Worker to follow our Settler as to improve some resources around our new city.

Turn 44: Moving units and dancing some more.

Turn 45: The Persian Scout just moved right past the dance floor and no harm was done. Stupid AI... Archery is done and we start research Writing.

And we can found a pantheon!

Spoiler :

I chose Goddess of the Hunt as we had discussed earlier, but in retrospect I'm thinking we could've gone for One with Nature what with Mt Kilimanjaro being around.

Turn 46: Utique is founded! I lock down the Mt Kilimanjaro tile for quick growth and start building a Granary because with all the Plains and Tundra around we will need some food.

Aaand I really thought I had taken a screenshot of this but apparently not... I could swear I did but there is no turn 46 screenshot in my folder. Hmph.

I realise the Worker won't have any work to do around Utique until its border expand or we research Calendar, so I move it back to a Truffles tile that Carthage will be expanding to in a few turns (the Governor is not too stupid after all).

Turn 47: Carthage finishes the Granary and I start construction on a Quinquereme. The dancing Warrior is garnisoned in Utique but the Scout stays north to keep track on Persian movements. A policy could be adopted and I chose Monarchy for extra happiness and gold because we currently had 0 happiness and only +1 gpt.

Turn 48: Worker starts building a camp on the Truffles. Darius moves west and I suspect he is going to build a city to the south of us... I sent southern Scout up if we need any help stopping him from building right next to us.

Spoiler :

Turn 49 and 50: Just moving units around.

The situation right now:

Spoiler :

And here's what our cities look like:

Spoiler :

I see now that I forgot to switch from Production focus in Carthage but that didn't make much of a difference. It grew to size 4 in one of the last turns and before that all tiles were locked down on food producing tiles. Next player can change that.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I'm back.

Bugs <= UP
Optional <= on deck
Polus
Teproc
Gurra <= just played.

I just read up on what we've done. I'm hearing four things:
1. Need to prepare for war.
2. Need to get the National College
3. Need to keep Darius from settling to our south. (On this point I think he is trying to settle along the coast probably next to the wine. I suppose a puppet there wouldn't be a bad thing.)
4. Need to get our economy up and running preferably through trade routes.

 

[Teproc]

Definitely need to block off Darius. He'll probably end up settling a crappy city to the north, but we can raze that when the time comes. I'd much rather found the Pearls city ourselves (if only because we get to place it right).

You can remove production focus if you don't want to micromanage, but I put it there because the of the "hammer trick". Basically the idea is to lock all tiles all the time and be on production focus (evne if you're actually locking food tiles) so taht when your city grows it automatically works the highest hammer tile. Hamers are added at the beginning of the turn, so you can then switch the new pop to another tile if you want, but you've already gotten the "free" hammers from the hill tile.

It does require to watch for city growth and micromanage a bit, so people can remove it if they don't feel like doing that, I'm just used to it personally (and I also have EUI which gives popups for city growth even after they go past size 5.

We need to build Archers now. Also a second settler at some point, but even if we don't attack Darius, he'll certainly attack us, and we need to be ready for that.

Edit : Can't remember if we have Writing, but if we do we should be building a Library in Utique. And if we wait on the Settler, we'll need to save gold for a Library in ... Hippo Regius I think ? Actually we won't be able to afford that, next settler should come soon if we want a 3-city NC.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Merci Teproc. Anyone else have some input? Otherwise I'll play tomorrow morning (US Eastern time)

 

[Polus]

I want my cake and to eat it too. Would love to race to a NC, but also want to lay the hammer on Darius.

Having said that, I think we should build an Archer (or two) and then focus on getting the NC (Library + Settler)

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Preflight &#8211; Put both cities on food focus. Not sure why we&#8217;re building ships that can&#8217;t help fight Darius. I&#8217;ll let that one finish and use it to go exploring, then focus on some military. Dancing with Darius will still be difficult, but we can hold him out from going south.

IBT - Darius must be in a golden age because his settler pair was able to move three tiles to the spot on the wine. He&#8217;s going to settle there on the next turn or else he is a complete idiot (which is possible).

51 &#8211; 1960 BC &#8211;I set up a block to keep him from going further south, but that won&#8217;t do much. Utique has grown and now is working the unimproved fish.



IBT &#8211; OK, he&#8217;s an idiot. The settler pair just stood there looking quite silly. If they stay there until we have our military built up, then we&#8217;ll have a free worker. Somebody entered the classical age.

52 &#8211; 1920 BC - Quinquereme finishes and it steers a course southwest along the coast. I start an archer due in 5 turns.

IBT &#8211; The settler pair starts to turn into a statue and pigeons land on their heads. Writing is in.

53 &#8211; 1880 BC &#8211; Q Boat continues to sail. Pigeons land on our blocking troops. I want to go for BW because I would like to know where the iron is, but this is an SG so I need to follow the team&#8217;s wishes. Can&#8217;t remember what the team wants to research next so I stop and go back and check.

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.

So we&#8217;re going towards construction with which I wholly agree. Select masonry.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

54 &#8211; 1840 BC &#8211; Q boat turns the corner and heads southeast. Truffles are online. Our sole worker begins to farm the plains tile next to the truffles. The statues that are our people and the settler pair are beginning to collect pigeon poop.



55 &#8211; 1800 BC &#8211; Carthage expands and takes the deer tile next to the truffles. Persia allies with Cape Town. Q boat sails due east and ends the turn in Cape Town waters. The local populace yells at them from the shore and we&#8217;ll surely take a penalty next turn. More pigeon poop collects.

IBT &#8211; Yes, Cape Towners are pissed at us, but they would be less pissed if we were to start a trade route with them. Yes, my friends, all in due time. We have to break up that barb camp first and find the time to build a cargo ship.

56 &#8211; 1760 BC &#8211; The Q boat finds that there are not any sea lanes heading to the south away from our island. Maybe somewhere along the east coast there will be a path.

57 &#8211; 1720 BC &#8211; Carthage grows and I check the governor. She correctly selected the new deer tile for 3F, 1H. The Q boat finds a path through the sea headed east. Our intrepid sailors boldly sail into the unknown. Our first archer completes, order up a second. With the extra hammer, the archer will complete in four turns. Move the archer to block the settler pair from returning home. This way we&#8217;ll be assured of getting an extra worker.

58 &#8211; 1680 BC &#8211; Our sailors find Silk Island, a single tile in the middle of the sea.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

IBT &#8211; An unknown civ founds Catholicism. Unique grows.

59 &#8211; 1640 BC &#8211; Our sailors find Cattle Island and spot the frontier of a white and green civ.



Scuttlebutt on the deck is that there are beautiful women in this exotic land. Sailors begin dreaming of carnal delights. They can also see Uluru in the distance and our people back home rejoice. Not sure how they know about the discovery so quickly (telepathy?). Utique grows and the governor selects the wine tile (1F, 1H, 2G). I move it to the sheep (1F, 2H) to get the granary quicker. Essentially sacrificing gold for growth.

IBT &#8211; Our sailors are crushed when this bearded mug appears:



Although the word does start to circulate that the Turkish women are quite beautiful. The captain tells the men to get back to work. We agree to swap embassies with Suleiman and find his capitol is south of our present location. The Ottomans have at least two cities.

60 &#8211; 1600 BC &#8211; Masonry => Wheel (We need that for construction). The farm is complete and our worker moves to the deer tile. Check the Carthage governor and she selected the farm. Our sailors continue east and meet the Ethiopians.



We trade embassies to get geographic intel. Now our sailors are dreaming of Ethiopian women. No port call, no liberty.

Here is the present situation. First the trapped Persian settler pair complete with pigeon poop:



Next the world as we know it:



And a screen shot with a dot added (I add it in MS Paint) as a suggestion for a third city in a couple of hundred years. The dot is pink in keeping with the long held tradition established in Civ 3:



Post flight commentary: Let&#8217;s save our money to upgrade our archers once we get construction. I think we will need four composite bows plus two or three melee units (at least one will be killed before the city is taken).

 

[Sir Bugsy]

And the save:

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Reading through my write up, let's assume that Darius has met the Ethiopians and the Ottomans and that we'll take a war monger hit. That's OK because it is early in the game.

Here is the line up:
Bugs <= watched pigeons poop on statues
Optional <= UP
Polus <= on deck
Teproc
Gurra <= just played

Optional - your job is going to be to set up Polus and Teproc for war. Probably have two ranged units ready to take out the settler pair and two to defend the initial rush from Darius.

 

[Teproc]

Nice set. Maybe Darius has a honor code of not settling on luxuries too ! As far as the third city spot goes, I'd go one tile W of the pink dot, because I believe that grabs an extra Truffles, which is extra valuable given our pantheon.

Edit : As far as war goes, it'd be nice to send a scout to see what Darius has right now. If he's still underdefended, we'd just need 5 or 6 CBs and we'll be able to take Persepolis. We might be a little off the mark for that, and while we're fine if he's just getting to Pikemen when we attack, we can't face too many of those. Otherwise we should aim for about 4 CBs for defensive purposes, they should be enouhg, and look to attack later with crossbows and/or Galleys.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Good point about one west of pink dot.

The problem we'll run into is fitting all those CBs in enough tiles to bombard Persepolis.

One easy way to figure out the lay of the land is to get an embassy with Darius.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Where are our teammates Teproc?

 

[Optional]

I was a bit busy last week, sorry. It looks like good play, but I'll have a better look when I'm back from work (off to work now).

 

[Optional]

I apologise, I should have been at this way earlier or tell you I needed a skip.

Work was busy and an unforeseen thing for me was that Age of Wonders released a new beta just before the Christmas period. The game had asked me to be a beta tester for the previous expansion and I happily complied. This is a new expansion in the works and I'm trying my best to support the game again by play-testing. If I had known this beta was going to be released at this time I would never have put my name down for this SG.

But I've looked at the save, will play tomorrow.

I'd really like to build another worker, 2 towns and just 1 worker is not ideal. We will need to hook up those luxes we have and sell them. We are only running at +3 gold, with a granary and an archer in the works it'll go down to +1, so we need to be selling stuff in order to be able to build more. Building troops is fine, but we need to be able to support them.
We also would get food from Cape Town if we hook up the Gold tile. It's not in our borders yet, but should be soon.
For research I would probably do Calendar first, also for financial reasons - maybe we can sell it to Haile Selassie, or we might need the happiness if we sell the Truffels.
I wonder if building a caravan for bringing food to Utique wouldn't have been more effective than building a granary, but since the granary is being built I would finish that (cargo ships I consider personally risky because of the plunder risk with barbarians around).
Walls in Utique would also be a good idea in my opinion. They don't cost maintenance and yeah, a war with Darius seems inevitable. You have to count on the AI being able to field way more units on this level, so we need to be prepared for defense.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I do like the idea of focusing on our economy first. Happiness will become an issue when we capture Persepolis. I am presently playing the gauntlet challenge game - level 7 as Poland - and I have found that happiness becomes an issue very quickly once you start capturing cities.

 

[Teproc]

It's looking like we won't be able to CB rush so yeah, I like your plan Optional.

My only problem is the third city... at this point it might have to be a post-NC city if we want to get it done in a reasonable timeframe. That's fine, but not ideal.

 

[Optional]

Thanks for your input. I've finally played, not a very eventful set. I'll upload the report in about 6 hours from now.