SGOTM 10 - Smurkz

[Backwards Logic]

Alright, I've gone ahead and updated the spreadsheets and optimized them as best I could. Things aren't too bad and shortly after the war starts we'll have a sizable military to stifle Gandhi. I've also figured out that Novgorod should go worker first and improve the iron first. This seems to get the city online faster and by turn 47 it was producing units at a considerable rate. I've also squeezed in another settler by turn 44 and due to some savvy worker management am able to get the seafood site (aka green site) settled the same turn and having a work boat chopped out the same turn. While this isn't reflected in the spreadsheet just know that it is possible.

Moscow sheet:

Spoiler :

St. Pete sheet:

Spoiler :

Novgorod sheet:

Spoiler :

Worker Moves sheet:

Spoiler :

There's only one major micromanagement issue here to make note of. On turn 32 to get St. Pete to grow a turn faster I switched out a grassland hill mine for a grassland plains forest. Other than that once the cities start working a tile they continue to work the tile.

Please look over and comment and if there's any questions do not hesitate to ask. There is one error in the worker move sheet I should point out. It says to move "1 SE, 1 S." This is incorrect, it should read "1 SW, 1 S. The grassland hill is the tile 1 E of St. Pete and where the mine should be built.

Attached is a test save for you to practice with before you take on the real thing. That way, if you think something should be done differently you can stop and post it instead of what happened earlier. Plus it will help get you familiarized with working to a spreadsheet and hopefully we'll avert any future problems. There's one minor difference which I don't think will impact anything, but in Moscow there's one extra hammer in the bin most likely due to a rounding issue. The food bin is correct and St. Pete's numbers are correct as well.

 

[CommandoBob]

I've downloaded the test game and will look at it shortly. Spent the afternoon doing some household chores, worked on a CivIII HoF attempt and then watched Star Trek III (and the bonus stuff, too ).

I like the city spreadsheets seperated out; that is very helpful. I am going to print them off. Last time I kept Alt+Tab-ing and that was frustrating, since the game minimized every time I did that and then took 3 to 4 seconds to pop back up. Minor issue I know, but still a drag.

​

Don't forget, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day (for a few more minutes, anyway). Arrggh!

 

[CommandoBob]

I've attached my test game, for comparison to yours.

Things I noted:

1. Move the Longbow with our Settler! This makes the Happy Cap numbers work for City #3.
2. India/Gandhi began to build their Camp on Ivory in 1410 AD (Turn 25) and need four turns to complete it. When do we change their plans?
3. On the IBT when St. Petersburg built their barracks, we could not build Pikes because Iron was not connected. I started an Archer instead but changed it on that turn, after the Iron popup appeared.
4. I moved the new Longbow in Moscow to St. Petersburg in anticipation of war.
5. Is there a keyboard shortcut to center the map on the capital? 'H' didn't work, nor did 'Alt-H' or 'Control-H'.

I don't mind playing on, but I had only planned to play 10 turns, which ends at 1420 AD.

 

[Backwards Logic]

Never mind the first part that was here - once I looked at save it clicked.

EDIT:
Point 1: - You got the right idea - we're on the same page. I probably should have mentioned that somewhere but you figured it out.
Point 2: - I meant to mention this in the previous post but forgot Keep track of Gandhi's progress on the Camp in the real save. When you scroll over the worker with your cursor and it says "Camp (2)" that's the turn we declare. You should stop on that turn, post a save, and we'll decide our course of action. By declaring on that turn we get the worker and prevent ivory hook up. So for example in the test save we'd declare this turn. I think I got Gandhi's worker actions in sinc with the real thing, but nevertheless check each turn to see where he's at exactly.
Point 3: - Yea, this is supposed to happen since the workers won't finish the road until the end of the turn (but before you hit enter). As long as the Pike gets started this turn we'll be in good shape
Point 4: - Yep, do that too. I've been leaving warriors as garrisons in our cities (with the exception of Novgorod).
Point 5: - Hmmm, not that I know of, but I use the arrows to the left of the city name in the city pop up window to scroll city to city to check the numbers for everything.

I figured I'd answer the immediate posts now and look the save more detailed in a bit.
Point 1 from me now: the longbow in Gandhi's territory will need to be moved in - I forgot to mention this as well. When you use the real game, make sure to move him to 1 N of the ivory in preparation for our DoW.

EDIT #2: You're spot on! The cities look good and the workers are doing what they should. You'll notice at this immediate juncture in time we're a tad light on military, but our production picks up drastically once the DoW starts because the cities have grown vertically and have improved tiles to work. As long as you check each city's tiles each turn and are comfortable with the worker moves I'm cool with you taking on the real thing.

 

[CommandoBob]

We have a slight problem. I see a fix, but wanted some feeback first.

What happened is that in the test game Workers 1 and 4 were still able to move. In the real game, that is Worker 1 and 3.

And I followed the spreadsheet, which means that Worker 3 is now out of position.

1405 AD Worker Placement

Spoiler :

Worker 2 is going to connect the Iron and then connect the Corn south of Moscow. I do not think that should change. And I really don't want to mess up the tag team efforts of Workers 4 and 5 as they mine and road some gold for us.

That leaves us with Worker 1 and 3.

We had planned to chop the forest 2N of St. Petersburg to help with the upcoming Pike build there. The chop would start this turn.

Worker 1 can get there this turn and start chopping next turn. Worker 3 would spend this turn moving and arrive on the hill where Worker 1 was and begin mining. That gets the chop in on time, but the mine is delayed by two turns and St. Petersburg uses that mine when it grows to size 5. Seems like a bad swap.

However, if we leave everybody else alone (no change to their planned tasks) and only move Worker 3, then we arrive at the forest two turns late, but we can still chop to help build the Pike and perhaps (maybe) overflow into the second Pike.

It seems to me that the simplest and best solution is to have Worker 3 be a bit tardy. Is it?

 

[Backwards Logic]

My bad...

You're right, the simplest solution is to delay the chop. We'd miss out on a pikeman by two turns, that worker move isn't crucial in the sense he does something the city later needs by a certain time. All of the other worker actions are crucial so the two turn chop delay won't cost us too much. Down the road the farm would end up getting delayed, so after the chop instead of building a mine move him 1 SE and build a farm. If he doesn't St. Pete's growth later on would get messed up and I may rejigger the sheets to work the farm as soon as it's done for faster growth. It'll be another thing for me to look at.

Rename the workers also so you don't get confused later. Make worker #3 -> worker #4 and worker #4 -> worker 3. If you don't know how to do this, when you have the unit selected click on his name on the lower left hand part of the screen and just type the new one in.

 

[CommandoBob]

06/23 1400 AD, Part II

Move Longbow near Bombay onto Indian workers.

Worker 1 moves 1SW, 1S, arriving at the hill 1E of St. Peteys.
Worker 3 moves 1E, 1SE, onto the eastern gold hill.

Moscow works Corn and Rice.
St. Petey works Flood Plain, and the two farmed grassland.

Per the Event Log, Ptolmey (Great Scientist) was born in a distant land in 1395 AD (last turn).
Confusism has spread to Delhi.
​

[IBT]

07/24 1405 AD

I moved Worker 3 last turn to the wrong spot! I followed the spreadsheet for Worker 3 except that in the test game it was Worker 4. In this game Worker 4 had already moved onto the Gold hill south of Moscow.

After the initial panic, it looks like the best option is to let the chop be delayed by two turns.

Punt.

Okay, delay the chop by two turns it is, plus need to rename the workers to line up with the spreadsheet. After the chop, that worker moves 1SE and builds a farm.

Settler 8 arrives at home, along with the waiting Longbow. Broberg-grad D) is founded and starts on a worker.

Longbow moves 1N of Gandhi's workers.

Workers 3 and 4 swap names.

Worker 1: starts a mine.
Worker 2: arrives on the Iron.
Worker 3: starts a mine (with Worker 5).
Worker 4: moves back onto the Rice.
Worker 5: starts a mine (with Worker 3).

Moscow works Corn, Rice and Cows.
St. Petersburg works Flood Plain, both farmed grasslands and Ivory.
Broberg-grad works Iron and Cows.

India is connected to Ivory; workers just standing around this turn.
​

[IBT]
Broberg-grad wants to join India. Idiots.

08/25 1410 AD

Fortify Longbow in Broberg-grad.

Worker 2 roads the Iron.
Worker 4 arrives in the forest.

Two Fast Workers are making a Camp on Indian Ivory; Two turns to go.

The two blocking units on the coast are fortfied so they don't get moved accidently.

The Longbow 1N of the Ivory is the last active unit.
​

[IBT]

Time for pre-war discussion.
And the save is >>HERE<<.

 

[Backwards Logic]

Well done!

I see there's two workers outside of our territory! The downside is we only have one unit that can actually pillage but aside from the lone catapult in Bombay he's under no threat. I vote declaring now to capture those two workers - that's too good a haul to pass up on. Gandhi has another worker outside Bombay roading the cows and our priority after the declaration would be to prevent him from getting those cows pasteurized. In my test games Bombay had always been the city that built the first settler for Gandhi.

We'll have the one longbow now then in either one or two turns (hard to say because of the hammer bin rounding discrepancy in the test game). The Iron is hooked next turn and St. Pete starts building a few pikes next turn as well once the barracks is finished. As for our one longbow's moves until reinforcements come, I'd suggest pillaging the roads Gandhi has made in between his cities so units cannot move back and forth between. Once the roads and their subsequent improvements are gone, there's three tiles we need to hold which 'should' keep any potential settlers stuck in their cities.

I've found the AI won't move a settler, even if escorted, to a tile threatened by an enemy unit. Therefore, the hill SW of Bombay blocks off his moves to the SW, a unit on the cows would prevent units from Bombay to the SE, and something on one of the plantations would block moves to the south from Delhi. Once those tiles are occupied, we could then move our other units onto key tiles so the cities cannot work them, namely plains hills tiles for hammers or the floodplains/food tiles for (duh) food. Keeping a unit on the ivory would be a sound suggestion as well. St Pete's borders pop in 11 turns, which means Bombay's will pop sometime sooner and he'd have two resources of ivory for potential hook up. Not good.

Those are my thoughts. What say everyone else?

 

[Niklas]

Broberg-grad D) is founded and starts on a worker.

Broberg-grad wants to join India. Idiots.

 

[CommandoBob]

So,

Longbow in the field grabs the two workers. They get sent back towards St. Petersburg to work in the salt mines or whereever Backwards Logic tells them. Then our Longbow moves towards the Cows of Bombay to maybe grab another worker.

Once we grab the Ivory Camp-makers do we pillage that tile with the Longbow or just move on?

New Longbow from Moscow will pillage the roads between Bombay and Delhi.

Pikes do what? Plant them so Gandhi can't grow or stay in the cities and let Warriors do that task?

Cows of Bombay.
The Cows of Bombay.
Somehow that phrase just sounds like a curse; May you be blessed with the Cows of Bombay!

 

[Backwards Logic]

I'm thinking having the workers move 1 NE and road the remaining ivory tile, so units from St. Pete can be in Gandhi's territory in one turn. Then I'm probably going to have them road around St. Pete, specifically the tile south of the city so the longbow being made in Moscow now can take out the worker currently roading the cows. I 'think' this can be pulled off before the pasture is complete - if not the longbow can pillage it. After that the workers could road the desert tile before roading to the horses. When St. Pete's borders pop they'd be in place to get the pasture online for Knights. The first longbow since he's already in the area will pillage everything in Gandhi's land - roads and improvements while sticking to tiles he can defend well in (forests, hills, etc). It'd take too long for the first longbow to make its way down to the cows - we'd lose a lot of pillaging turns this way.

Pikes would do pretty much the same as the longbows but could also attack stray units outside his borders, only if 1) the odds are good and 2) it makes sense. The trick would be to get them to 5 xp for woody two and thus be able to move faster. Woody one by itself doesn't help too much.

In a nutshell: Short term: pillage his stuff; Mid-term: block any possible settler escape route; Long term: Stick units on his high yield tiles so he can't work them (floodplains, forested hills, and resources).

I'll put together a separate worker plan in the near future. It looks like I'll have more free time than I expected - by Xbox 360 just when Red Ring of Death on me, and the timing couldn't be worse. Tomorrow Halo 3 ODST comes out

 

[CommandoBob]

I was planning to finish out my ten turns and pass the game on. I don't mind playing further, but don't want to be hog.

At any rate, once the ten turns are done, I post the save and log. Maybe some of the others will be back by then.

 

[Xcalibrator]

I'm still following along and updating the Reference post with your screenshots and spreadsheet links, but can't do much else. Looks like things will ease up by this weekend, though, so I can start contributing more. Can't wait until you grab those workers! Three would be quite a haul if you can pull it off.

 

[CommandoBob]

08/25 1410 AD, Part II

Oops! Gotta download the save; first things first.

Power failure. Down goes the game, Notepad, QuickShot, IE; crash and burn. Reboot, reload and regroup.

We declare War on Gandhi.

And we capture the two slaves.
​

[IBT]
St. Petersburg barracks -> Archer in ? (Pike prebuild).


09/26 1415 AD

Worker 4 begins his chop.
Workers 3 and 5 road the mined gold hill.

Longbow pillages Gandhi's Ivory road.

Slave01 and Slave02 move 1NE; start and finish roading the other Ivory.

Moscow works Cows, Corn, Rice and just connected Iron.
St. Petersburg Archer -> Pike.

Great Engineer born in Bombay.
​

[IBT]
Moscow Longbow -> Pike in 5.

10/27 1420 AD

Worker 2 moves from Iron to Corn, starts a road
Worker 3 and 5 move 1E to mine and road.

Slave01 and Slave02 move to hill 1S of St. Petersburg, to road

Longbow moves into roaded forest 1NW of Bombay.
Longbow 10 moves from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
​

[IBT]
And the save is >>HERE<<.

 

[Niklas]

St. Petersburg barracks -> Archer in ? (Pike prebuild).

Not sure I understand you here. Did you queue up an archer to switch to a Pike later? That won't work, there's no such thing as a prebuild in Civ4, the hammers stay with whatever they were invested in.

 

[Xcalibrator]

Oh yeah! Our Power on the Progress page is the highest! [size=-2]At that particular turn.[/size] That'll have the other teams scratching their heads! Smurkz, high in power??

CB, did you want to play more, to maintain momentum? That would be fine with me, otherwise I guess I'm up. Not sure I'll have time to look at the save tonight but in general my availability is trending upward. Regardless of who plays next, what if any issues do we need to discuss? BL, your spreadsheets go thru turn 34 =7 more turns. Does anything need to be changed (e.g., what shall we have our new workers do)? I wonder how many units we can have outside our borders before it costs us? Do we care? Do we care about unfogging coastal water tiles to prevent barb galleys from spawning? When do we want to build a galley or caravel for exploring? Will we eventually need another city defender in Broburg, and do we want to continue with the worker build there? We could, for instance, build a galley instead to go pick up a worker from elsewhere and then explore a bit (although there's that Gandhi caravel somewhere).

 

[Backwards Logic]

I'll pull up the save later today/tonight and address things specifically, but I'll add my thoughts now. I was thinking having the two new workers road the hill they're on now, move SE, road that hill, then continue on to the horses and road it in preparation for St. Pete's border pop. As for the worker in Broberg, I say finish it since it'd be quicker to finish it now than stop it and build something else. Moscow is tied up with settler duty and St. Pete isn't coastal, so I'm thinking Broberg can be our naval unit city. With the Iron, Cows, and later a mined grassland hill it'll have more than enough production for Caravels and galleys. I think we want one Caravel for exploring purposes and for the time being one galley to ferry units around. Brober after finishing the worker should build culture for three turns (IIRC) so that the borders pop then build a workboat. Worker improves Iron first, then Cattle (no road on either tile at this time, just the mine and pasture). I also have to spell out worker 1's moves so that a workboat completes in our fourth city the turn it gets settled (green site). As an aside, are we all in agreement this city should be settled next? It probably isn't in any danger to be settled in the near future but it also has the highest potential.

 

[CommandoBob]

Not sure I understand you here. Did you queue up an archer to switch to a Pike later? That won't work, there's no such thing as a prebuild in Civ4, the hammers stay with whatever they were invested in.

Pikes weren't available, so after the baracks completed I selected Archer instead on the IBT. During the turn I started a Pike, but nothing was spent/allocated to the Archer, as far as I know.

CB, did you want to play more, to maintain momentum? That would be fine with me, otherwise I guess I'm up.

I don't mind playing on to keep us moving forward. I just didn't want to prevent someone else from playing if they could.

 

[Niklas]

Pikes weren't available, so after the baracks completed I selected Archer instead on the IBT. During the turn I started a Pike, but nothing was spent/allocated to the Archer, as far as I know.

Ah, gotcha, you were waiting to connect the iron. Carry on.

 

[Xcalibrator]

BL, I agree we want to settle the northern fish site next, as long as it doesn't take 8 turns for the settler to get there. Broburg will build workboats for it, right? With so much food we'll eventually want to switch out of Serfdom and into Caste System so we can run lots of scientists there, but that's a ways off.

CB, that would be great if you can play some more.

At some point we'll want to build trebs so we can knock down the units in Gandhi's cities, otherwise he'll just keep spamming longbows and will eventually get a huge stack to send against us. I'm particularly worried about Broburg, since it's hard to reinforce quickly.