RB25 - The Golden Five

[Strauss]

IT (375 BC): Preflight check:

The Golden Three situation:

Cornelia is currently at +2 unhappy faces. One of those will go away in 9 turns when the whipping penalty ends, the other one is from war weariness.



Venice will grow next turn and then reach its happiness limit for 10 turns, after which the angry faces from whipping will go away and the city can grow further.



Tuscany will remain in revolt for 3 turns.


Military situation:

Persepolis is garrisoned by five(!) archers. One of them has the City Garrison II promotion, two others have CG I, the remaining two have no promotions.



Our strike force currently consists of eight Swordsmen. However, only two of them are at full strength. As Sullla stated, we lack a medic. If we are lucky, the Swordsman near Persepolis will be attacked by an Archer, allowing us to promote him to a Medic.
We will gain another Swordsmen in 4 turns from Cornelia.

Political situation:

We currently have contact with Cyrus, Mansa Musa, and Isabella. Only one rival remains unknown.

Religious situation:

We are currently Hindu. We should probably wait to convert until we spread Judaism a bit.

 

[Strauss]

IBT 1: As hoped, Healer is attacked, and wins! Gibbon ranks us the 4th wealthiest civ. We wanted to be 5th! The unknown civ is #1.



Turn 1 (350 BC): I promote Healer to Medic I.



I move him forward across the river, hopefully he won’t get attacked this time, though he still has a big chance of winning. Library finishes in Venice and I start on a Swordsman, due in 8 turns.

Turn 2 (325 BC): Healer is attacked, but survives and reaches the safety of the forest.

Turn 3 (300 BC): Tuscany comes out of revolt. I pondered about building either a Jewish Monastery or a Work Boat. I went with the Work Boat (30 turns) to allow the city to grow faster. Hinduism serves us well for now.

Turn 4 (275 BC): Cornelia finishes a Swordsman. It starts on a Forge as it is a high-shields city.
I hire two scientist specialists in Venice, since it’s at its happiness limit anyway. This gives Venice 12 GPP per turn, and also speeds up Alphabet by 1 turn to 5 turns (it had already sped up by 1 turn earlier).



Our Healer comes too late, 5 of the 6 Swordsmen in Tuscany have been healed to full strength, and I move them back into Persia. Healer continues to Tuscany to heal himself and the remaining Swordsman.

Turn 5 (250 BC): Cyrus has sent two Archers towards Venice. He seems to have a Barracks, as both Archers are Strength I. Ah well, I’d rather meet them in the open field than behind city walls.

Turn 6 (225 BC): An archer pillages a mine, the other moves into the open besides Venice. Archer Bane kills him, and is wounded but gets 11 XP, allowing CR 3 promotion!

Turn 7 (200 BC): Persepolis seems to be churning out Archers for sport, so I spread out our striking force to occupy some tiles.



IBT 8: As expected, the Swordsman out in the open gets attacked by an Archer. He’s badly wounded, but gets a promotion and will have time to heal before the attack on Persepolis commences.

Turn 8 (175 BC): Nothing happens

Turn 9 (150 BC): Alphabet comes in, start on Literature.



Swordsman is finished in Venice and it starts on another one for good measure. Mahavira is born in Cornelia. I’m sending nine Swordsmen out to Persepolis, with two of them wounded.

Turn 10 (100 BC): Nothing happens

Turn 11 (100 BC): I kill two Archers south of Persepolis, badly wounding two Swords.

Turn 12 (75 BC): I can make some trades with the AI, but I don’t want to give up our Alphabet and Metal Casting monopoly.
Thanks to promotions, our wounded Swordsmen are still in some sort of fighting shape. I move our CR3 into position for attack, and he actually has positive odds against the CG2 Archer! The great attack will commence next turn.

Turn 13 (50 BC): I forgot to put out a decoy onto the Corn to lure an Archer out of the city. The AI’s foolishness makes up for this, as it moves one Archer out of the city. CHARGE!

Our CR3 Swordsman defeats the CG 2 Archer at 57.7% odds!


Our CR2 Swordsman defeats a CG 1Archer!



Our CR2 Swordsman defeats a CG1 Archer!



Our CR2 Swordsman is defeated by the Strength I Archer



Our CR2 Swordsman is defeated by an Archer…
Our CR 2 Swordsman defeats the Archer.



Our CR 2 Swordsman defeats the Str1 Archer!

 

[Strauss]

I think this battle was a clear proof of the 'fairness' of the RNG-God. We won 2 battles at 43% odds, and consquently lost 2 at 57% odds


Persepolis, the Holy City of Hinduism, is ours and we loot 190 gold.
We also get a view of Arbela, it is walled and has a Settler ready. It also has an impressive cultural presence. I move Moses to Persepolis for the shrine.
I make peace with Cyrus for all his techs and forcing him into Paganism.



I revolt to Organized Religion, I think it’s useful for building those wonders and we can take the upkeep with just 5 cities. Start on the Parthenon in Cornelia, due in 19 turns, but I plan to chop a bit. +50% GP birth rate in all cities is a very nice bonus, and we need to get it now if at all.

Turn 14 (25 BC): Nothing happens, but it’s clear OR is speeding up some building projects. I think building a Shrine in Persepolis would be agood move, since Arbela’s culture is currently covering the Iron!

Turn 15 (1 AD): Confucianism FIDAL.

Turn 16 (25 AD): Nothing happens

Turn 17 (50 AD): Nothing happens

Turn 18 (75 AD): Literature comes in, and I go straight for Music.



CoL was an option considering no-one we know has Alpha yet, but we don’t know about the unknown civ, and researching CoL first will deplete our cash and force us to research Music at 50%, costing 10 turns more than it takes now (25 to 15). And a Great Artist in the bag is always nice.

Turn 19 (100 AD): I decide to end here as 100 AD is a nice round number.

An overview of the Golden Four:

 

[Strauss]

We will get our next Great Person (a GS) in 12 turns from Venice. The lighthouse there will finish in 2 turns, and we should probably head for the Great Lighthouse after that.

The Parthenon will finish in 9 turns if we don’t get beaten, and will give us a nice boost.

Music will almost certainly give us a Great Artist.

Persepolis will come out of revolt next turn. I think we should build the Shrine there, in order to counter the culture from Arbela. Another solution is declaring on Cyrus again when the peace treaty expires. I don’t think Arbela will put up that much of a fight against our elite troops. There are only two Archers garrisoned there at the moment.

We also still need a 5th city. Arbela is an okay site, but founded 1 tile off the coast. The resources are very nice though, 4 Furs and a Cow. My personal preference goes to the site north of Cornelia, 1 N of the Corn.

EDIT: save is a few posts below

 

[Kodii]

lurker's comment: Don't you want to rename Persepolis?

 

[sunrise089]

I really don't know about the wisdom of using a GP on the shrine, especially after you guys told me how difficult the GP generation will be. Do you think the $$$ will be that helpful? It will be less than people might be used to if I understand correctly, since the small map will limit how many cities you can spread Hinduism to.

How did you guys get Cyrus to give you so many techs for peace? Is there some sort of medium ammount of punishment that makes the AI very generous? Normally I don't end up with very good peace options even when I could easily eliminate the AI.

 

[Strauss]

lurker's comment: Don't you want to rename Persepolis?

I do want to, but I forgot. I'll rename it, hopefully before Sullla gets to it

 

[Strauss]

Behold:



You were all doomed when I was put on the roster


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/78327/RB25_-_The_Golden_Five_AD-0100.Civ4SavedGame

 

[Strauss]

How did you guys get Cyrus to give you so many techs for peace? Is there some sort of medium ammount of punishment that makes the AI very generous? Normally I don't end up with very good peace options even when I could easily eliminate the AI.

Well, Monotheism and Archery are not the most expensive techs around at 100 AD. And even Mathematics only costs us about 8 turns at the moment.

 

[mucco]

Great turn, great city name! The RNG God surely has not been harsh to us. Arbela looks nice, but maybe the location north of Cornelia is better. It's true that there are more resources in Arbela, though. We probably don't want to take Susa, as it provides a "buffer" zone between us and Spain.

Founding a city in the south looks like a hard task, as I see that Izzy's already there, so it's either of the two locations (Susa doesn't look so good).

Tuscany is at the border with Spain and Persia, so it will need a lot of culture and much protection to prosper.

Might I suggest letting T-hawk play now his turn, so he can take Arbela/found a new city? This seems the right moment.

 

[Sullla]

I would put T-Hawk up again in the roster, except that I think we are NOT quite ready to found city location #5. At a minimum, Arbela is going to have to be razed, and we don't have a settler in position to found at another location. I'll take the save and even out the turn numbers, while setting up T-Hawk to build our final city sometime in the very near future.

And, as far as Straussburg goes...

 

[Gusto]

Good turn set Strauss.

Behold: ... You were all doomed when I was put on the roster.

Congrats on capturing Persepolis and renaming it to Straussburg - City of Doom. I was at your combat screenshots of Persepolis. I see you like to capture images of flying bodies. I'm unsure why you garrisoned Healer in Tuscany? I was hoping he got group with the Swordsman Brigade in attacking Persepolis. Anyway I suggest we group Healer with the Swordsman Brigade and fortify Tuscany with Archers.

Awesome peace treaty with Cyrus. You took to him in war and diplomacy. I see you experienced a few Whack-An-Arch yourself. From your report, I couldn't figure out what happened to the Swordsman I positioned NW of Venice guarding the border between Venice and Persepolis. I was surprised the Archers were able to pillage a mine. Anyway the pillaged mine still needs to be built.

I liked your decision to research Music for the free GA because I know Gandhi likes to research Music early; and we don't know who the last civ is.

I was saying to myself "Don't built the shrine!" when I was reading your report about using Moses to build the Hindu shrine. I know it was discussed and my inclination was to use Moses to build the Hindu shrine. After reading T-hawk posts, I agree with him.

I'm not in favor of either a shrine or lightbulbing a religious tech. If we're going to spend any one GP towards economic production, an Academy in our best science city will pay off more economy than a shrine will.

It can still be done with one prophet, if we avoid Monarchy until somebody else researches Theology (the AIs prioritize it because it founds a religion) and trades it to us (CoL or Metal Casting as the trade bait.) If we can somehow work it out to spend one prophet on CS, I think that's still worth it. Remember any prophets beyond four are useless for GAs and I think it's likely we'll get more than four, so we can spend one.

We should either trade or research Theology; and use a GP to lightbuld Civil Service. Of course, we'll need to trade or research CoL before lightbulbing Civil Service. If we use one Great Person for something other than a GA than I would like to lightbulb Civil Service because I'm speculating we'll pop more than four GP in the game and early Bureaucracy is a good investment. I'm not speculating we'll pop more than four GS so we shouldn't use one to build an Academy. We always have Cottage Spam and Sullla, the tech broker.


We should stay Hindu, and not convert to Judaism. I'm recanting my suggestion because if Mansa founded Confucianism than he'll convert to it sooner or later. Personally, I could never keep an AI converted to my religion if the AI founded another. It always converted back to the founded religion at some point. We would have wasted much production time building Jewish missionaries to spread the word to our cities and Mansa cities. Actually we could be wasting valuable, limited production time if we focus on building missionaries to spread the word. Our production is limited by the fact we only own 5 cities. We should focus on building infrastructure, military units, and wonders (lots of wonders). Anyway one Hindu missionary needs to built for Tuscany, and we shouldn't build Jewish missionaries to spread Judaism unless a situation in the game calls for it. This point also emphasizes why we shouldn't build a shrine because a Hindu shrine will only collect 5 gold.

Concerning the last city location, I like Susa's location the best for all the grassland and water tiles. I just see lots of poor tiles located around Arebela and N of Cornelia. N of Cornelia has fresh water tiles; however so does Susa. Susa fresh water tiles are better quality - there all freshwater grasslands. All three sites have poor production so all three cities are candidates for a commerce city. Susa is the best choice for a commerce city with all the fresh water grassland and water tiles. Susa doesn't provide any new resources; however what does the other two sites provide: Arebela has Fur and Deer and N of Cornelia has Deer. Personally, I prefer four fresh water grassland cottages over four Fur tiles; and I don't consider Deer in the BFC as a good reason to settle a city. The capture of Susa will help Tuscany push back Izzy borders. The two cities culture will overlap and eventually overtake Izzy's culture. In any land war with Izzy or Mansa, Tuscany and Susa will act as target cities for counter-attacks; thus leaving Straussburg, Venice, and Cornelia undisturbed behind in our territory.


It looks Cyrus has another city where I signed Cyrus City in a red circle. I'm for declaring war on Cyrus to raze Arebela and the new city - giving us control of all the northern territory - and capturing Susa for the fifth city as stated above. Cyrus has Construction so we can expect War Elephants and Catapults for him soon. The sooner we finish him off the better. I circled the Iron in red because I would first pillage the mine in the next declaration of war, and would suggest pillaging the Ivory too. We can always improve the tiles later.

I would like to send my congrats to all the team members for completing a good team cycle of play and settling the golden four.

 

[Gusto]

lurker's comment: I'm sure there's someone out there can speak to the actual mechanics behind this, but I've noticed the AI tends to go with roughly one defender per every two pop points (except at the founding of a city, when it'll sometimes have two defenders from the get-go). Persepolis was size 8 with 3 archers when the open borders spy was before the city, at which time it was probably working on its 4th. By the time the army arrived, it was size 10, so 5 archers was maybe to be expected. The 6th and future archers would be the proverbial "gravy" archers, with your pillageable improvements or vulnerable units being the mashed potatoes.

Good comment and I would say fairly accurate from what Strauss and I experienced in our turn set around Persepolis. I'll have to keep your comment in mind in future warring situations.

 

[Sullla]

(0) 100AD OK, things are looking better than when I last had the game and we had but one small city! Straussburg comes out of resistance next turn, and although it will be unhappy, the location will be a strong one down the road. Arbela is pressuring it, so I'll see if I can raze that city before this turnset is done... two Persian archers won't put up much of a fight for our swords. Peace treaty expires in four more turns.

Cornelia is building the Parthenon, ok with me. However, it's WAY under the happy cap, so let's do something to fix that! I change a plains forest tile to one of our grassland cottages, Parthenon build time drops by one turn but we pick up 2 more food and growth increases dramatically (9 turns to 5 turns). I'm not sure whether I see Great Lighthouse in Venice's future, but I'll tweak things there and see if the wonder's still available after we get lighthouse and granary there. For now, I drop one scientist to work a grassland cottage (after we grow to size 7, we can pick up the extra scientist again). Trying to sacrifice Great Person production a little here for the longer-term advantage of making the city stronger. Culture borders squeezing Tuscany a little, something will have to be done there as well...

Music is a great tech to research for now; I also see Calendar in our future soon, but we can definitely trade for that (Mansa and Cyrus both already have the tech).

(1) 125AD Straussburg out of resistance, and it's not too happy...



See that "motherland" unhappiness? That's not ever going to go away, at least not until we go through the agonizingly slow process of overcoming Cyrus' culture with our own. We're not going to wait that long. In short, that "motherland" unhappiness has doomed Cyrus. The best way to get rid of it will be to eliminate him... so that's what I plan to do.

Pyramids built in a faraway land, Mahabodi (Buddhist shrine) built. Izzy's got her shrine up, it seems...

Now I know there was some skepticism as to whether we should build the Hindu shrine or not, but I still think that it will be a strong enough move to warrant the use of a Great Prophet. Our 5 cities will all be Hindu, we can convert all of Mansa's cities, and we should be able to convert the cities of whatever civ is out in the fog too. Even if we can't get more than 15-20 gold each turn from the shrine, that amount of gold, every turn for the rest of the game, with building multipliers factored in - I think that's still worth doing.

The alternative proposal, using the Prophet to highlight Civil Service, just seems silly at this point in the game. We're going to research Theology and then burn a Prophet on Civil Service?! Why not trade for Code of Laws and just research Civil Service itself! The tech's not THAT expensive! Using a Prophet to grab Civil Service in like 1000BC is a very strong play, probably TOO powerful. At this stage of the game - not nearly as good. As Sirian would say,

I urge you to think long term.

Having the Hindu shrine in play for the rest of the game seems like a much stronger play to me than getting Civil Service some 20 turns faster than we would have it otherwise. If we come up short of Prophets at the end of the game, I'll accept responsibility.



Currently 4 cities have Hinduism in them, but that will go down when we raze Arbela.

(2) 150AD Mansa demands corn. Wow. Mansa usually doesn't demand stuff... I go ahead and give it to him. It's just a corn we don't need, and no point in pissing him off unnecessarily. Remember to cancel this deal on the next turnset.

Venice finishes its lighthouse and starts a granary, Tuscany finishes workboat and starts a granary. Straussburg is also working on a granary. Granaries all around!

We have a new Pasargadae:



Another city to burn down!

(3) 175AD Popped Another One (TM) at Venice!



Another source of iron, ooh. More shields, very nice.

(4) 200AD Cancel peace treaty with Cyrus - whack a mole time!



Worker on the border captured, Straussburg becomes extremely unhappy, but that's what the whip is for (granary whipped for 2 pop). Now the city is stable at size 5. All the other cities look OK, so let's do this thing!

 

[Sullla]

(5) 225AD Cyrus moving archers towards Tuscany - I am less than scared.

(6) 250AD Our City Raider III swords get 70% odds to attack Arbela, even though the defenders are City Garrison I and behind walls. We win the first battle without a scratch, second sword is also successful, and:



Scratch the cultural pressure on Straussburg.

(7) 275AD Mansa asks us to convert to Judaism. Urp. If we were Spiritual I would convert in a heartbeat, but we're really involved in some important stuff here. Think for a minute, but we just CANNOT convert to Judaism right now. I have to take the relations hit. Sorry about that, everyone. I still think we can get Mansa on our side with Hindu missionaries down the road, so don't give up on him!

Venice begins its play for the Great Lighthouse, due in 12 turns. No clue if we'll get it or not, but we may as well try! (We WILL get the Colossus there, we should go forge/Colossus next in Venice regardless of what happens.) Kill an archer who tries to pillage our gold mine with Healer (85% odds, not much of a fight).

(8) 300AD Parthenon finishes in Cornelia, yay! [dance] I start a Hindu missionary for Tuscany.

(9) 325AD Straussburg hits 100 culture, wow! That was fast. Paragadae #2 has two archers, one with Combat I and the other with nothing, along with only 20% cultural defenses. That's not much of a match for our vet swords. I give Archer's Bane the honors:



Goodbye. Our swords will heal and head for Susa to finish the job, after which we can FINALLY get around to peacefully developing our civ. Whew. (I did not envision this early warfare, but sometimes the map forces your hand!)

(11) 375AD And a quiet last turn. Cornelia finishes a Hindu missionary, who heads for Tuscany, goes onto settler (5 turns) for our final city. I'll discuss placement in a little bit.

As far as the war goes, Susa has three archers behind walls (50% defenses), none of them with any promotions:



We have several swords moving in that direction and others healing; we should be able to take and raze the city in about 5-6 turns. I didn't lose a single unit on my turn, but that was just luck. We had good odds everywhere, but still lucky. The units we do have should be more than enough to finish Cyrus.

Hopefully Venice will get Great Lighthouse; regardless of what happens, I'd whip out a forge next and then build Colossus. Once we get started on Colossus, we can trade Metal Casting away without fear of losing the wonder. Cornelia should probably do Great Library after it finishes its settler, after which can can trade Alphabet and Literature away safely. We DID get Parthenon, which should be a big help.

 

[Sullla]

So - where to put city #5? Here's a map:



I think the best spots are either northeast or Cornelia or north of Straussburg, since that's where the clusters of resources are. In the Cornelia area, I like the spot one tile southeast of the corn resource; grabs corn, cows, silks, one tile of overlap with the capital, but lots of hills for potential production. (Some of the proposed spots north of there have a little too much tundra.) In the Straussburg area, one north of the ruins looks pretty decent; it has cows and deer plus four furs, but also a lot of ice and tundra...

Option #3 is keeping Susa as city #5. I'm not enormously impressed with the terrain; mostly jungle tiles (grassland). It would make a good spot for cottage cheese, so the question is really do we want more of a production city (such as north of Cornelia) or a commerce one? Since most of our cities are already low-production, I'd lean towards founding one geared for shields, but that's just me. If we go with the Susa option, Cornelia can be swapped to another build with no production invested in the settler.

TEN turns each from here on out! Back to a more normal SG turnover.

We're swapping T-Hawk in next so that he can found our final city. If we chose a location for the settler that takes additional turns to reach, T-Hawk can play a couple extra ones. Otherwise though - 10 turns each from here on out.

Sullla
mucco <<< on deck
T-Hawk <<< UP NOW
Gusto
Strauss

Once we have all five cities, we should be able to trigger our first Golden Age with the free Artist from Music. Hooray!

 

[ruff_hi]

Behold ... Straussburg

You are lucky that Cathy isn't in the game and I am not playing a round or two ... naming that city is just asking for it to be given away by the pushover for peace!

 

[Gusto]

Wow that was fast turn around for a turn set. I responded to Strauss turn set and than I see your report is available least than an hour later.

Great turn set but should we expect any less.

Popping iron in Venice is sweet. It makes Venice a decent production city to build a few wonders in conjunction to hiring oodles of specialists. Venice is a decent hybrid city - more commerce oriented.

Concerning fifth city location, I like the resources in the area N/NW of Straussburg however I’m not impressed with the terrain. The location N of Cornelia that’s SE of corn and Susa are much better locations to settle our fifth city. IMO this is how I see the development of the current cities: Cornelia and Tuscany are production cities, Venice is a hybrid city - more commerce oriented, and Straussburg is a commerce city. So I’m leaning towards another pure commerce city in the capturing of Susa. I’m even open-minded to invading Izzy territory, , to raze the city that’s putting cultural pressure on Tuscany and exploring the area for potentially settling the fifth city. Let me add that I see Cornelia as our wonders production city and Tuscany as our units production city (Heroic Epic). What would be the role of a third production city? I’m just having a difficulty visualizing the role of a third production city in the overall scheme of things, and see a stronger need for a second pure commerce city. We can always use two workers to chop the jungle tiles around Susa and improve the tiles. Anyway I’m leaning towards another commerce city because I simply don’t see the role of a third production city in the overall scheme of things. It’s just the way I’m seeing the development of the cities and will follow any decision on any location.

 

[mucco]

I didn't think this conquest could be so fast! Now the northern part of the continent is clear for centuries - watch out for barbs!

I've tried to make a dotmap of the zone; the original size is in the thumbnail, I'm posting here the resized one.



Sullla's suggestion is the red dot; an alternative place up there is marked blue, instead of the cattle it grabs deer, has more overlap, less production and probably less food, so it's probably weaker, but I had already put it there and I was too bored to delete it .

In the west, the yellow dot is the other suggestion of Sullla, and grabs two food resources and all the furs; the former Arbela (yellow circle) has overall better terrain, but fails to grab deer. The green dot has bad terrain, but keeps two food sources, gains horses, and could be our only chance to get that marble (very useful for our variant).

I could see other two places, respectively north of the red/blue corn, and S/SW of the red cattle, but they seemed too weak to deserve a dot for me .

And then, there's Susa. The lack of a food resource is compensated by the great amount of commerce available.



EDIT: I obviously can't write

 

[zakalwe]

I think red dot might actually be better off one tile south. I know, the overlap with the capital looks horrible, but it's "only" four tiles, and the move would trade crappy tundra terrain for more grass and iron. However, green dot is probably a better site, even with its four ice tiles, as the remaining tiles are good and it will grab marble with its second border expansion, probably in time to do you some good.

Still watching, with great interest!