5CC Space Race interest thread

[TheOverseer714]

I'm not happy with where we put Yekaterineburg at all. It should have been placed 1N of where it is in my opinion--it would have been closer to the spices, which we'd already have roaded up probably; it would have another BG on culture expansion (the one just past the spices that we'll never use), and it was a more strategic point for defending any incursions. It also overlaps a square with Yaroslavl, which is kind of a no-no in these sort of games unless it's really necessary. Nothing to be done about it now, but something to keep in mind for future games.
[/SPOILER]

I placed it there for a reason: The site 1 square north includes a grand total of 4 worthless sea tiles which could never be improved, which is a huge no-no in a long game. In exchange for an extra BG, that seems a fair bargain. As it is, that town wil be a dog because of distance corruption, I wouldn't want it even farther away. If it hurts us, its my fault. City placement s still more of an art than a science, and my art sense said the site it's on has the better long-term value. If this were a regular game with more cities, it wouldn't be a big issue. Anyway, great work on the trading.

 

[Spoonwood]

The site 1 square north includes a grand total of 4 worthless sea tiles which could never be improved, which is a huge no-no in a long game.

I don't know if you made the right choice here or not, and I don't mean to argue one way or the other.

However, do you mean the spot on the hill? It would have had three unimprovable sea squares there. Maybe DWetzel means the spot 1 square northeast on the coast? That spot has 2 more hills and one less sea square, so that's less science potentially for that city, though I guess you have to figure in the overlap with Yaroslavl also.

 

[DWetzel]

I meant the non-coastal hill (the one that's in the middle of the three diagonally). Point taken on the coastal tiles not being improved--though really that amounts to a minor food issue, until VERY late in the game when a commercial dock happens to be available--and the overlap with Yaroslavl comes pretty close to canceling that,though again, that doesn't come into play until late in the game either (post-Sanitation). Commerce-wise I think we're slightly better off inland for more of the game. I could be wrong though. Either way it probably didn't bear mentioning.

 

[TheOverseer714]

No offense taken, DW. As I say, city placement is an art, not a science. Half the fun of the XOTM competition is seeing how different players lay out their cities. I'm sure either spot would have been fine, I just used my judgement. I assume I'm up, I will start tomorrow, as I'm going to see Avatar later today

 

[TheOverseer714]

I re-read the previous posts, I don't want to start until I get some input on switching research to Republic. If we wait for the AI to get it, we will be waiting a long time. I think I'd like a bit of consensus before I switch. The barbs I would rather defend against than evacuate the city, as they will also destroy population and accumulated shields. If we evacuate, they all get a piece of our hard-won cash and shields. I'm confident our spear can handle 4 of them before croaking, the Archer and Warrior should each survive 2 attacks, leaving at most 2-3 to loot and pillage. I'd rather die fighting than slink off and letting them ravage our city. There shouldn't be many more in the fog.

 

[sk8boardbob2]

Hmm, we have theology and can start building Caths and Sistine so I think we should head toward Republic. Education and unis would be nice but we would want Cathedrals anyway so I think we can wait.

 

[del62]

Hmm, we have theology and can start building Caths and Sistine so I think we should head toward Republic. Education and unis would be nice but we would want Cathedrals anyway so I think we can wait.

We have put 118 beakers into education, we have to decide if we complete education before going for republic, I dont mind either way on the decision

 

[DWetzel]

I re-read the previous posts, I don't want to start until I get some input on switching research to Republic. If we wait for the AI to get it, we will be waiting a long time. I think I'd like a bit of consensus before I switch. The barbs I would rather defend against than evacuate the city, as they will also destroy population and accumulated shields. If we evacuate, they all get a piece of our hard-won cash and shields. I'm confident our spear can handle 4 of them before croaking, the Archer and Warrior should each survive 2 attacks, leaving at most 2-3 to loot and pillage. I'd rather die fighting than slink off and letting them ravage our city. There shouldn't be many more in the fog.

If we wait a couple of turns, we won't have accumulated shields in Novogrod (because the aqueduct will be done), and we can gift our gold to the Scandis and trade back for it. Which means we may lose a pop point or so but more likely the barbarians ravage us for 0 gold a shot. I would have done it sooner but obviously we have too many shields there to make it viable.

 

[DWetzel]

On the Education/Republic question, I'll leave it up to the group. My vote is with Education, but I don't feel that strongly about it.

 

[sk8boardbob2]

I did some quick crappy math and if we go for Republic first, we would save one turn on Education. However if we factor in the time for a revolution, we'll get both techs quicker if we stay on the current path. But then we would still have to do a revolution so I think in the end, it all comes out relatively equal.

 

[DWetzel]

The other question is, what are the odds one of the AI gets Republic for us in about the next 20 turns? I believe they have had Code of Laws and Philosophy for a while, so it's not unreasonable to hope one of them manages to pull it off, the lazy bastards.

 

[TheOverseer714]

The other question is, what are the odds one of the AI gets Republic for us in about the next 20 turns? I believe they have had Code of Laws and Philosophy for a while, so it's not unreasonable to hope one of them manages to pull it off, the lazy bastards.

Ahh, such is why higher levels are better for a science game.

 

[Daeron]

lurker's comment: At monarch I've found that you really can't trust the AI to do your research for you.

 

[Spoonwood]

Daeron,

Monarch 5CC?

 

[Daeron]

Yeah, uhh. Though I never played OCC or 5CC at standard mapsize and I just realized that they are. So that probably makes a lot of difference.

 

[TheOverseer714]

We shall see, we are still way ahead of everyone but the Inca. I traded Literature to the French for cash to keep our research maxed. No sgn of AI research happening so far in my turnset.

 

[Spoonwood]

My experience has come as that they'll still do research slowly, but since they have more time to grow and techs take you guys longer, it gets closer to higher level play in terms of tech competitiveness.

 

[sk8boardbob2]

If we still have a tech lead going into the IA or even parity, we should be good. The AI will go Nationalism, Communism, Facism which will give us time to snag ToE and hopefully Hoover's. We can then sell monopoly techs for enough GPT to keep us ahead of them in research. If we don't have Aluminum close by, we could have a problem.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Ok, I've held things up long enough. I have finished a very non eventful turn-set, mostly dealt with the barbs. We are in good shape, but the pace is pretty slow. Here is the turn-log:

Spoiler :

Pre-flight: CivAssist 2, Word running. Get the save loaded. Look things over.
Fortify our ACs, need to recover the hit point to get them green. Move workers. Hunker down at Yaroslav. Move warrior on iron to lure barb horses away from our spices. Move scout to safety(temporarily).

Non-Combat
Workers 11
Slaves 2
Scouts 1

Military units:
Warriors 7
Archer 1
Ancient Cavalry 2
Spearmen 2

Total units 24
Allowed units 20
Support cost 4

Contacts
Babylon-Peace –Alliance vs Inca, 15 turns
France-Peace
Inca-War
Ottomans-Peace–Alliance vs Inca, 15 turns
Vikings-Peace
Hittites-War
Portugal-Peace

Cities
Moscow, Size 7, growth in 9, Hanging Gardens in 18 turns.
Novgorod, Size 6, growth in 6, Aqueduct in 3 turns.
Rostov, Size 6, growth in 2, Marketplace in 10 turns.
Yaroslav, Size 4 growth in 5, Harbor in 4 turns.
Yekatarinaburg, Size 2, growth in 9, Aqueduct in 43.

Sliders
9/1/0, Education in 19 turns at -6 gpt, 35 in the bank.

Hit enter=>

IBT: Barbs shuffle around, but no attacks.

Turn 1, 730 BC: Kill one barb horse at Rostov, a barb warrior at Novgorod.
Start mining tile near Moscow. Move healthy vAC towards south barb camp. Fortify 2warriors on spices to protect them.

IBT: Barbs shuffle around, 1 threatens a worker.

Turn 2, 710 BC: Kill a barb at Novgorod and at Moscow. Otherwise, nothing.

IBT: Barbs shuffle around . Novgorod Aqueduct=>Marketplace.

Turn 2, 690 BC: Kiil a barb warrior with rAC, which promotes. Switch Yaroslavl to a market, a harbor can wait, it won’t help any right now.

IBT: Barbs kill conscript warrior. SoZ gives us an AC... that’s a fair trade, I think.
Novgorod gets a cultural expansion revealing the barb camp near there. Nervous treasurer report.

Turn 3, 670 BC: Sell France Literature for 34 gold. We want our pals literate, right? Send new AC to Novgorod.

IBT: Barb horse attacks Novgorod, no damage. 2 barb horses threaten Yekatarinaburg. France begin GLib. Rostov gets a cultural expansion.

Turn 4, 650 BC: Kill a barb horse at Novgorod. Kill another near the iron. Move eAC toward Yekatarinaburg. **resume here**

IBT: Barb horse pillages road to the spices. Moscow riots.

Turn 5, 630 BC: Warrior lose to barb horse, then eAC finishes him. Other ACs kill barbs near the iron and Novgorod, losing 1 hp each. Trade Theology to Babylon for a slave and 23 gold. Since the AI are such trade sluts, I get the Ottoman’s 30 gold by trading them Theology.

IBT: 2 veteran ACs survive barb attacks, promote.

Turn 6, 610 BC: Fortify wounded ACs. Otherwise, nothing.

IBT: Barb horse moves onto Spices.

Turn 7, 590 BC: Kill barb horse.

IBT: 2 Barb horses move next to the spices. SoZ gives us an AC. Novgorod Marketplace=>Pyramids(placeholder maybe, but free Granaries would be nice).
Yaroslavl Marketplace=>Harbor. Ottomans build the Mausoleum.

Turn 8, 570 BC: Destroy barb village NW of Novgorod for 25 gold. Kill barb horse near spices.

IBT: Nothing happens.

Turn 9, 550 BC: Kill last barb horse near spices, that threat is gone.

Non-Combat
Workers 11
Slaves 3
Scouts 1

Military units:
Warriors 5
Archer 1
Ancient Cavalry 4
Spearmen 2

Total units 24
Allowed units 20
Support cost 4

Contacts
Babylon-Peace –Alliance vs Inca, 5 turns
France-Peace
Inca-War
Ottomans-Peace–Alliance vs Inca, 5 turns
Vikings-Peace
Hittites-War
Portugal-Peace

Cities
Moscow, Size 7, growth in 1, Hanging Gardens in 10 turns.
Novgorod, Size 7, growth in 8, Marketplace in 8 turns.
Rostov, Size 7, growth in 12, Pyramids in 33 turns.
Yaroslav, Size 5 growth in 5, Harbor in 9 turns.
Yekatarinaburg, Size 3, growth in 9, Aqueduct in 30.

Sliders
9/1/0, Education in 8 turns at -9 gpt, 117 in the bank.

The save:

 

[sk8boardbob2]

Alright I have the save and will have it up soon.