SGOTM 09 - Murky Waters

[klarius]

For starters, I'm fine with Erkon's prohibition on fishy fog-gazing, but using the airship's rebase function to decide where we want to rebase it is simply part of the airship's capabilities. We have OBs with Hammi and Joao enabling us rebase to any of their cities. Hammi has 3 cities to our west. We can rebase to them without prior knowledge of where they are (that is, now, if we want). If we're going to scout west, we might as well rebase there first. Before that, I think we should scout the east island and the barb island, because that will tell us about our immediate REX plans.

Well, Hammi's cities are pretty close. The re-base icon turns green (relative to marble) at 8w3s, 8w3n, 11w.
Maybe we want to make plans for acquiring a couple .
But re-basing doesn't give us knowledge of the land in between for settling.
Knowing the east island would be fine, but I think we will settle there no matter what . Knowing the barb island is fine to satisfy curiosity. And there is the chance that the 6 visibility we get there gets us knowledge about more land in the east.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Yes, Hammi's cities look to be part of our T100 12-city portfolio... And I agree we want to first use the airship to map out our REX plans.

We might want to capture Barb Island--low maintenance, may sit on a resource and/or lots of seafood, might be under-defended. East Island has similar unknowns. Stone, in particular, we want before Oxford.

Anyway, rebasing costs a turn, so we want to explore those two while we're still based in MW, imo. As for 8W, the eastern portion gives us what we already know. Standard fog-gazing on 9W is for me inconclusive but it might be another hill or even a mountain. Meanwhile, we want to rebase west anyway, so from Hammi's cities we'll be able to defog the entire circumference and move on.

That's how I approach it anyway. I'm open to better solutions.

 

[Erkon]

There is one reason to rebase this turn in Hammu-land, and that is to increase the chance to meet more AI in time for the alphabet.

I suggest that we build a second airship to scout the immediate area (instead of granary), and use the first to meet other AI. We will need another airship anyway to fog-bust/detect barbs.

If we want to fully explore the eastern island, we will have to rebase in FF to reach the hill on that island.

Does everyone remember this post and this post and this post I wrote in SGOTM8 regarding airship reconnaissance? Ignorance is no longer an excuse

 

[klarius]

There is one reason to rebase this turn in Hammu-land, and that is to increase the chance to meet more AI in time for the alphabet.

I suggest that we build a second airship to scout the immediate area (instead of granary), and use the first to meet other AI. We will need another airship anyway to fog-bust/detect barbs.

If we want to fully explore the eastern island, we will have to rebase in FF to reach the hill on that island.

I don't see that meeting other AI is that urgent as to delay granary. What tech do you expect to buy from monarch AI at this stage?
Anyway, it's probably better to not have met other AIs before trading for some cheap stuff from our neighbors. By that they don't know our first trades and don't go WFYABTA as early.

I don't think we need to rebase to FF. We may miss a couple of tiles on the eastern island, but we have to go there anyway.

 

[Erkon]

klarius is right - I didn't think about the WFYABTA... So let's explore our immediate surroundings first. There's a hill to the west in the fog that is a good starting point. The barb city is another suitable site. Perhaps a hill to the southwest would be suitable, although the scout may reveal enough (Gnejs - I suggest you move the scout as well). A couple of tiles of the eastern island and sea resources may also be revealed).

 

[Gnejs]

I'm back from hiking, which I fittingly enough did in a National Park. Too tired to think about any detailed plans, but is anyone against the following mini-PPP?

PPP T49 (partial):
Scout 1NW
Airship recon mission in barb city



If I hear no objections in the next hour I will go ahead with these two moves...

 

[LowtherCastle]

What you hear is the sound of no objections.

 

[Gnejs]

A picture speaks a thousand words...

Spoiler :

Are you prepared for Gyathaars surprise?

Spoiler :

Please sit down in case you faint.

Spoiler :

Really ready?

Spoiler :

And the save. Enjoy.

View attachment Pericles BC-1060_after_recon.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[ZPV]

Atlantis! We're not capturing that before paratroopers.
We can blockade the city, once we have ocean-going ships, and cut off the threat on our coastline

 

[Erkon]

While we let Gnejs sweat over his PPP - can the rest of us see how many buildings we can detect?

Library[s/] No, it was a Palace
Granary
Totem Pole
Castle
Barracks
Globe Theatre
Heroic Epic
Harbour No, it was a Trading Post
Drydocks
Then there's something that looks like a graveyard (lots of white slabs of rock) in the bottom left
And palms in the upper right (whatever that is) - It is National Park
And the white building looks like Red Cross - yes
What else then? - See klarius below

 

[klarius]

I don't see a library or harbour.
But trading post, lighthouse, ikhanda, dike, national park, red cross, west point on top.
Edit: And very important: palace. So, much lower city maintenance compared to usual barbs.
Edit2: Forge.

150% defense and promotions indicate that the wall around is a dun (and normal wall on top).
All promotions explained by buildings which will be not kept. No indication for settled specialists.
No bonuses to see (there might be the only aluminium on the map under it ). Other than that totally useless.

Total barb population is 19. So there are 5 unaccounted for.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Thoughts
Note: These are just thoughts. I haven't tried resolving how to put any of this into effect. Some maybe you can't do at all or only begin. Whatever.

* Think: REX and MW-cottages.

* Build a city (or two?) on East Island asap for the trade bonus(es). If we don't get Sailing with Alpha, research it next.

* Build Rice City asap. Gives us a trade route to Joao while no coastal barb city in between. It needs 3 maces, in city, in forest, and on rice. The sooner the barbs start attacking, the sooner their numbers in that city diminish, since with 2 galleys, they can send 2 per turn, but only build 1 per turn.

* I can't think of any reason not to revolt to Confucianism now.

* Agree with klarius on Marble plains/hill windmill. That worker could then road between MW and Rice without wasting turns. Other workers build grass cottages that FF, Marble, and MW can work. New worker builds MW windmill or starts roading to Rice if settler built soon.

* On poprushing, the wears off in 6t, something to keep in mind if you want to poprush a galley in FF toward the end of your turnset.

* Airship scouting: East Island first (hopefully over land), then rebase as far west as possible (his center city currrently).

* Maybe the barbs will build the Pyramids for us!

 

[Gnejs]

Well, Atlantis is working 10 sea tiles so it must be running 4 specialists. Add the +5 gpp for the 5 national wonders since the beginning. Since this should have been enough to pop a couple of great people, I assume that barbs can't do this. Correct?

 

[klarius]

* Build Rice City asap. Gives us a trade route to Joao while no coastal barb city in between.

If Joao should be connected to coast by now , we would be connected with sailing ->river ->MW. Rice or cow isn't any better.
But this connection would need a road in the barb landing area.

 

[klarius]

Since this should have been enough to pop a couple of great people, I assume that barbs can't do this. Correct?

Yes, no barb GPs.

 

[LowtherCastle]

What is the strongest land unit the barbs can build? Can they build spies? Can they build ships better than galleys? Can they build airships?

 

[klarius]

What is the strongest land unit the barbs can build? Can they build spies? Can they build ships better than galleys? Can they build airships?

Paratrooper .
Yes.
Frigates and privateers.
No.

All taken with a bit precaution. It's not easy to find out what they can do, as it's defined only what's forbidden to them in CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml.

And BTW, they don't build wonders in BtS.

 

[FiveAces]

I detect a big big flaw in my games here.

I was ready to have a long philosophical discussion about the way I interpret the way granary works, the way you describe, the similitudes...


But it will be easier if we set an example. A city gets the granary built the same turn that it grows to pop3, without overflow, so we have an empty bar at T0 (in your language, 0% filled, the worst possible situation).

My believe is that, when some turns later the city grows to pop4, there's magically half the food needed for pop5 in the bar, instead of been 0 as would happen without a granary.

Are you telling me that when you go in those few turns from 0% to 100% and pop4 you get only 25% of the bar towards pop5?

I'm not sure about the percentages. What I'm saying is if you build the granary at or before you are 50% to the next pop point, the granary is effective immediately. If you build it with more than 50% in the box it's not effective until you grow a 2nd time.

 

[Gnejs]

Wait a minute. Atlantis will become a monster.

Globe Theatre = no unhappiness
National Park = no unhealth (from pop)
Twenty (20) 3f1h tiles in the fat cross.

In other words it can grow to pop 31 and have a freaking awesome production and research...

 

[Gnejs]

Paratrooper .

Can they also do paradrops?