aCK-2 Seeing Red

[goblinmarine]

good set.
i'm glad i mined the empty hills around kyoto lol. iron as soon as we get roads there... good deal.
to be honest i think it's a waste to have specs in kyoto. that's a lot of hammers going to waste. I understand the necessity now, but i'd MUCH rather have those guys working three grassland hills, the plains hill, the rice, and a forested grassland to build axes (cats/phants when we get HBR and construction) to crush the psychos around us.
oh, and in a similar light i think kyoto's at the point where we don't want to whip it, it has improved tiles to work and is a hammer monster when in production mode. just my opinion on it.

 

[Liquidated]

once we knew copper wsn;t in the bfc, iron was as clsoe to 100% as you are going to get in this game. Actually Liq would dare say the other blank hill is a late game coal (or nukes).

Set looks fine though a non scouting, wonder whoring khan is very very odd. "Did we get the Fru Fru Khan" ala Boff-01 kinda of very odd.

That we have 3 different religions running around now means lots of tension. Brennus is the huge +dip for same religion btw, so where he falls will dictate a lot.

btw when saying yellow had hammers... well what liq meant was it has 2x mines and ivory for hammers, as well as food to support them. By no means a long term hammer town , but for spitting out axes while Kyoto pushes setters and workers.... good enough.

Not a ton of rexing this game!

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[S.ilver]

Set looks alright Whosit. The builds are good, but some of the worker actions are questionable. We've got a worker at Kyoto ready to start what I assume is a 5th mine. We don't need that many mines. There's a ton of jungle we need to chop out at Yellow Dot, as we're running up against the improved tile count. We're also chopping the pigs out, when they are not yet in our borders.

We also have no roads except for the one leading from Kyoto to Osaka. Getting those towns hooked up is important for reducing maintenance and getting that free commerce from the trade route.

The GS is set to pop right before we finish Maths, so that's great timing to bulb Alpha. We'll be able to trade up from there; Aes makes good trade bait for the next tech, but we obviously want Construction (if we can snag Masonry from a trade). We have enough cities to be able to roll out an army (once we get some improvements up where they're needed).

I'll take a closer look at it in a bit, have classes right now.

 

[sturick]

Unfortunately, I still feel that we lack the scouting to do a proper dotmap. But here it goes anyways.

First attempt spoilered to hopefully avoid confusion.

Spoiler :

The green dot represents Satsuma.

The first dot that I would settle is yellow dot. I would like to grab those floods while there is still an opportunity. This is very similar to a dot that Whosit mentioned...I just moved it one to the east to potentially pick up the iron. This adds 2 tiles of overlap with Satsuma, one of which is a mountain so I don't see that as a big deal. It would require another culture battle though...this time against a capital, but if it works and Pacal doesn't have iron/copper or horses in his BFC then he should make for easy pickings as a potential first target.

The blue dot would pick up stone for us (always nice for wonders if we decide on building any).
There are also four hills, cow, and two hammers from the city tile that would provide plenty of hammers and we could make a farm off of the tiny lake to help work them. Decent early military unit pump. I worry that it might not leave a spot to place a city to work the fish though.

The cyan dot has been prebuilt for us by the barbarians...I would wait a while before taking this one over as it would put us right up in Genghis's grill. He might not care for that so much. But iron and couple of hills for a little production...lots of grass and two average food resources make this look like a cottage cheese city to me.

Another option would be to take out the barb city...gets us some expierienced units for our upcoming wars btw...and to plant a city on the spices. It gives us a safer border with Genghis and doesn't waste the land between there and Satsuma...I'm actually liking that spot more now that I think it out but I'm too lazy to re-edit the pic.


EDIT: Actually put cyan dot one north of the spices. This gives it only three water tiles...only one hill and the iron...still plenty of grassland so still cottage cheese.
Lots of jungle here so still should be towards the end of our smallish REX.

The only dot to our south I see is POS dot and its merits are pretty clear within its name.

The land isn't great to work with so I don't feel super confident about these dots.
But I don't think that they are half bad either though.

 

[Whosit]

S.ilver: I wasn't planning to build any more mines. I had the workers chopping forests and I figured that I might as well chop the forests on the hills because they'd be mined eventually anyway. Maybe I should have chopped flatland to make room for farms.

The worker is chopping the jungle on the pigs because the chop will finish just a turn before borders expand (I couldn't get the timing any better than that) and I figured we'd want to hook up that food source ASAP to get growth going in Tokyo.

Sorry I wasn't focusing on the roads. I thought the worker turns would be better used improving tiles for the towns (though I suppose I went overboard chopping trees at Kyoto). I guess my only defense is that with a 5th worker due soon, the next player will have more than enough labor to handle road building and such.

Anyway, I appreciate the comments; the above was just my reasoning for my actions.

Edit @ stu (can I call you "stu?" Just kidding): I think I agree with your movement of my dot/your yellow dot to make a grab for the iron. I'm a little uncertain about blue; it makes a better long-term location than my spot, but it'll be rough going at first since many of its northwest tiles will be controlled by Pacal at first. On the other hand, if we can pump culture into both Yellow and Blue, their combined might might be able to push back the culture of the Mayan capital.

I think I like the Cyan dot on the Barb town. It has some hammer potential, as you mentioned, and it makes use of several resources. I also noticed something that I think I've seen S.ilver mention in other games: It's a coastal town with only a couple of water tiles. Could be good for making a navy at some point. I figure that if we really want to work the unresourced tiles between Cyan and Satsuma, we can just put down a filler town and build cottages or something.

 

[sturick]

Whosit: Stu is just fine as it was my nickname in college.

The issue that I would have with my cyan dot becoming a production hub is the fact that it doesn't have fresh water terribly close. We would need to chain alot of irrigation and build quite a few farms to workshop the grass tiles so its not ideal for production. We should have plenty of production cities anyways...plus being a pang map lessens the need for a strong navy.

 

[S.ilver]

Your dotmap looks good sturick. No obvious moves I would make for any of those dots. Cyan is, of course, debatable, and it is unlikely that we'll even get to it before Genghis does. I tend to favour the barb city with the information we have right now, as the rice is a primary food source.

Blue dot makes me cringe trying to survive on Cows and Spices. Luckily there is a lake there for irrigation, and it's fairly contiguous with Pacal's land (who is our nominal first target). We lose the fish, but can always spam a squatter town there for later.

Yellow is a solid use of otherwise meh land. Has enough floods and food to really crank the hammers by working hills.

I'll take the turns shortly, up to Maths/bulbing Alpha. Will try for Yellow first, and then backfill to blue if we still can.

By the way, if it wasn't evident to everyone, we originally delayed Iron Working to hit Pottery->Writing due to the core nature of those two techs to primary infrastructure. That, and our tech rate has most definitely been helped by hiring specialists in the library.

 

[Liquidated]

Updated leaders post to include khan.. Here

Still need to kinda lay low until the fireworks start, then we can pick our target. Seems the new satwtf town should go hammers early on. Mines and farms as it has 4 hills to play with. Hopefully we "find" a better hammer town before IW comes in.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[S.ilver]

1075BC (117):

Preflight check. Well, first marking up the map with sturick's dots.

A quick zip through our 4 cities shows nothing at all needs to be changed. Everything is running just fine.

A few units still have movement, so get them moving...

A quick peek at the relations screen shows everyone hating on Liz. Pacal is not exactly popular either, due to Warmonger Respect issues. We're holding nice, so I'll start to bulk up on military in case Liz gets dogpiled so we can join in.

Notice a worker isn't named, so Toku's "Humiliation" coming right up.

1050BC (118):

Liz spams Nottingham somewhere far away, while Satsuma and Osaka gain pop (and the maintenance takes out our surplus.

Osaka is growing out of control soonish, so drop the 2-pop whip on it to finish the Library next turn and pile more culture in Sully's direction.

1025BC (119):

Osaka's library rolls in, and I dial up an axeman.

1000BC (120):

Pacal spams a town.

Just horrible mate. Wastes floodz dot, so we'll have to kill it.

Toku's "Consternation" pops from Kyoto. We dial for a Sword.

975BC (121):

Oracle is BIAFL by freaking Khan!

This must be Khan transplanted from Boff-01... He obviously slinged something nice as he pulls into first place score-wise.

Monty flips to Hindu, so wins bonus anger points against Sully. Still hates Liz the most though. Yay!

Satsuma can whip the granary (probably could have last turn too), and since we're on unimproved tiles, go ahead and do it.

950BC (122):

Zzz... Satsuma finishing the Granary, a barracks is a cheap and necessary building for us.

925BC (123):

Khan gets the mining accident event, yay!

900BC (124):

Sully is in a REALLY bad state land wise...

875BC (125):

Osaka finishes the axe, so ordering a settler here for Stone Dot.

850BC (126):

Liz shows up and wants open borders! Good one Liz .

Kyoto finishes a sword, and I dial an axe.

Have to dial down our tech rate to stop bleeding. I delete Tanaka to save gold, since we have an axe guarding Osaka anyways.

825BC (127):

Nothing...

800BC (128):

Notice that Tokyo grew, so setting up the whip on it's granary, especially since Liz is starting to push against this city from the south.

775BC (129):

Brennus converts to Hindu! More hate on Liz .

Finally get Tokyo hooked up to the trade network, yay. Dial a library, as we'll be wanting culture and science here.

750BC (130):

Satsuma finishes a Barracks, so I order an Axe for now while we grow back some population to work mines.

725BC (131):

I manage to land our scout beside a Barb Archer. We're on a hill, but we're still dead... Seems Monty has a ton of land to the south and east, and it's just ballooned with barbs.

Kyoto trains an axe, and I get on another.

700BC (132):

As predicted, our scout gets blown away and doesn't even scratch the barb archer. Ok, well less maintenance we're paying then.

Satsuma gets a border pop, so S.ilver ends up wasting a turn as we can now chop/mine the gems.

Tokyo's copper is all mined up and ready to work next turn when we grow.

675BC (133):

Pacal lands Alpha this turn, too bad we have nothing to trade him.

650BC (134):

We get our Great Scientist.

Maths is next turn, so obviously sitting on this guy for the bulb of Alpha.

625BC (135):

A forest fire nukes something in Monty Land, so we all point and laugh.

Of course, no one wants to trade Masonry, the bums. However it appears that Brennus for some reason lacks Agri!

It looks very much like Khan used the Oracle to Sling Metal Casting... Interesting.

No one wants to trade Masonry, and well we shouldn't be deflected from our plans, so I dial up Masonry->Construction.


Passing off the save here. We're well on our way to Construction. We've got decent trade bait in both Alpha (only Pacal has it), and Maths (no one has it). Alternatively, we could head off to currency, but the idea is to fight, so we can pick that stuff up later.

Roster
1. sturick >> Up Now <<
2. Diamondeye <-- On Deck --
3. goblinmarine
4. Liquidated
5. Whosit
6. S.ilver <-- Just Played --

 

[Liquidated]

silver is on drugs! Currency next as it's

1. can trade cash with techs
2 can build markets
3. can build wealth
4. +1 trade route.

major major

point and make fun of sleepy time silver!

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[S.ilver]

Uh, ok. S.ilver was clearly on some heavy , trying to suggest war before our economic base is sound .

Currency is indeed first. Hopefully we can pick up Masonry as well, as I just remembered we are Toku (Protective!) and are about to get Stonez... More on that in a bit, as I have classes right now.

 

[sturick]

Oh come on Liq...Silvers heart was in the right place when he suggested the construction path.

But I agree with Liq here tho (no pointing and laughing since that got me in trouble in school )
I have had more emperor games than I would like to admit that have died a slow death because I didn't tech Currency in time. But only manly testosterone techs after that!

Well played turns as always Silver.

Stupid Pacal...why'd you have to go and build a city on a hill??? GRRRR!

Should we adjust our EPs to perhaps get some points on Genghis?
I think pulling points...or point to be more accurate...from Monty is the best choice for now since we don't have a border with him.

Look at the sitrep screen and tell me if you don't smell a dogpile...

Although I wouldn't be surprised if Monty takes a shot at Sulei. As far as Monty is concerned Sulei is a heathen and a weakling that he shares a border with. According to Liqs leader page that is a potential -9 diplo hit. Something to keep an eye on.

Are we still looking to settle Stoned Dot next...the culture situation there is looking ugly.
Maybe we are better off picking up POS dot now and settling Stoned and Floodz when we clear out Pacals stupid hill city.

My preliminary plan is to start teching Currency, find a home for our settler and to beef up with some military and workers. Pretty straight forward for now.

This is an I got it.
I would like to play this afternoon but that might not work out. If that doesn't then I will play tomorrow morning.

 

[Whosit]

Are we still plotting to join in the war against Liz when it comes? Someone will come knocking to ask us eventually (there's no dip bonus for agreeing [aside from mutual struggle points], just a penalty for declining, right?) which would give us a nice excuse. Since we're running out of room to expand anyway, do we have a sense that grabbing any of England's land would benefit us?

Or would we be better off going after Pacal while everyone is distracted? My gut says to go for Pacal since he's closer and we have a better idea of what's there (and we know we want what he has). Sturick's game plan sounds good to me: Currency, settlement, and military. I can't see how that won't help us no matter what shakes out.

Thought: Actually, would there be any reason not to declare on Liz if asked? As long as we keep a decent garrison south, she'll probably have her hands too full with the others to pester us much, even if we declare on Pacal at the same time.

 

[sturick]

To answer Whosits question...

The only land I think we would consider grabbing from Liz is her capital...there is still quite a bit of fog but we can see grassland pigs, iron, silk(meh) and at least two hills plus some riverside commerce. Given that it is a capital we can possibly expect another resource or two in the BFC.

Two cons that I see...its her capital so expect it to be well defended. And capturing this city would give us kind of an ugly border to defend so keeping the peace with our eastern neighbors would be quite important.

Overall, I think I still prefer to deal with the peeps to our west first. If we can knock out Pacal and then Genghis while the crazies to the east pummel each other I think we will be in good shape.

Thats still a tall order though...Pacals financial trait will make it hard for us to get any kind of tech advantage on him. Meanwhile, Genghis' UU can be quite troublesome until you get pikes. Even a frou frou Khan will build Keshiks.

 

[S.ilver]

sturick has learned well the lessons of diplomacy and border consolidation . Indeed, we don't want to be caught in a situation where we are fighting on both fronts. Capturing Liz's territory would pose a problem, because it would leave us with a piece of land jutting out, with Brennus to the west, and Monty to the east (not to mention Sully to the north), so that land would suck to defend.

Pacal is a financial civ, so it will indeed be difficult to get a tech advantage on him short of bulbing (and Toku isn't Phil ). He needs to be our first real target for this reason. Everyone has the hate on Liz, so we can safely ignore her/go into a false war to keep the other warmongers off our back, but Pacal is tolerated (although not liked, so we shouldn't incur diplo penalties from everyone else from DoWing on him).

So long as we have our catapults, we can deal with Pacal. The AI is fairly bad at fielding their army, and if we have a balanced stack, we won't be attacked and we can take down his cities at our leisure.

Khan is another story, and we may want Engineering before dealing with him, since his UU is a pain and will flank out our siege.

 

[sturick]

Alright playing tomorrow morning...sorry I forgot to mention that in my previous post.

The one question that I have...are we still using our settler on Stoned dot?
Not sure what the concensus here so just throwing that out there for clarification.

 

[PaulisKhan]

Don't kill off Liz too soon, best to give the dogs a bone to play with!

Pacal and Sully look like good targets.

Looking forward to the next exciting update, keep it up!

 

[sturick]

Good morning all...

Lets take a look at our empire shall we?

Kyoto is growing slowly while still working two specs.
We will be able to work another mine when we grow to size seven giving us 13 hammers. Pretty nice!

Osaka has three turns left on its settler.
I am going to send the settler to Stoned dot when he finishes.

Tokyo is growing so fast...either need to whip again soon or to build another cottage to work instead of the pigs. Looks like Silver has already got that started . Couldn't see that from the city screen. Riverside cottage in six.

Satsumas mine will be online pretty soon so yay for the extra happy!

Alright we will soon have our fifth city and we currently have 5 workers. So the current plan is to build at least two more during my set. 1.5 workers per city is prolly the minimum workforce you need....especially early on with all sorts of improvements to make and jungle to cut.

Military buildup is important too so gonna crank out those axes and swords.

Change the tech to currency...31 turns...uugggh.
Well like I mentioned, I have been in games where it considerably longer to finish than this so we are in good shape honestly.

Everything looks solid so lets play! Whacking now.

(1) 600 BC

The only thing I do is move the worker to continue building a road to Stoned dot...axe is fogbusting so hes safe to work.

(2) 575 BC

Kyoto finishes its axe...still no granary here so lets get that out of the way.
Sending the axe to Tokyo to beef up there...just a warrior for now. If we get ourselves into a fake war we need to have a garrison here just in case. Even though Liz will likely have her hands full...best to be safe.

Genghis fires up a golden age...did I miss a GP pop from him last turn? Lets check.
Yup Great Wall Spy for Genghis last turn. I think I miss stuff when I jump right into a city screen...slow your roll stu!

I also missed that Brennus got a new source of whales...we are in trouble now!

(3) 550 BC

Fru Fru demands that we sing him the ABC song.

Still won't trade Masonry...does this mean he is building the Mids?
No sailing for him yet so either hes stubborn or going for wonder #3.

Osaka settler>sword
Off to Stoned dot!

Osakas borders pop...its only a matter of time before we snag those jumbos and gems!

Forgot that I wanted to readjust our spy points.
I move points from Liz to Genghis.
I figure if Liz is going to be the first one to go that we shouldn't bother wasting our points on her.

(4) 525 BC

New Aztec and Mongol cities this turn.

Pacal wants OB...thought about it for a bit.
Considering scouting out his land...but we really don't need to.

Kagoshima is founded and it can work 6 squares...and none of them are great...BOO!
Monument queued to try and help fix that.

Only -1 gold after founding so still at 50% for now.

Gems are mined now they need a road. That helps our econ out alot.
Basically, the gems cancelled out the new city...well almost.

I stagnate Tokyo for two turns by moving from the pigs to a plains forest.

Before:

After:

Whip unhappy wearing off and gems getting connected will add two to the happy cap in four turns so in two turns I will go back to the previous configuration for growth.

Pretty sure that this is my last chance to two pop whip Kyotos granary.
So i do that.

Take a look...am I right that next turn I would only get a one pop whip with minimal overflow?

(5) 500 BC

Kyoto puts the overflow into an axe.

(6) 485 BC

Not gonna do it Hacksaw!

Not gonna do it either redeyes!

Switch back Tokyos tiles

Satsuma axe>axe

(7) 470 BC

Pacal settles another city.

A barb is harassing Satsuma...so I run an axe out to guard our mine...gonna try and bait him. Shoulda moved the axe out to the forested hill once it was built for barb patrol. Bad Sturick!

I have to crank back research to 40% as we were at 0 gold and -2 gpt.
+1 gpt now but we lost two turns on currency.

(8) 455 BC

Move the axe onto the gems to protect them...lets hope they attack and our odds hold.

(9) 440 BC

Our axe survives...kinda hoped he would get 2 exp for the victory but no dice.
One short of a promotion.

Osaka sword>worker

No changes on the tech trade screen...I have been peeking in every couple of turns looking for Masonry to become available.

(10) 425 BC

Reshuffling workers...

One pop whip the library in Tokyo for 44 overflow.

(11) 410 BC

Genghis' GA is over.

Brennus wants OB...uh uh.

Toyko puts the overflow into a worker.

Kagoshima finishes its monument thanks to a chop so on to the granary.

(12) 395 BC

In a sad turn of events...Genghis converts to Hinduism.
So in the Hindu block are Monty, Brennus, Pacal and Genghis.
This is going to throw a wrench into our plans.

Gonna get crazy in order to try and finish currency faster.
I've read around that running 100% and 0% on the slider avoids rounding losses.
Basically, its more efficient use of
So if this can shave a turn off of currency then its worth it.

(13) 380 BC

Kyoto axe>axe

So far my 0/100% plan is workiing.

One turn at 0% and one turn at 100% yielded 53 beakers with -3 gold
Two turns at 50% would have yielded 52 beakers with -6 gold.

Tedious but helpful!

(14) 365 BC

Ho hum...

(15) 350 BC

Holy protective longbows!

It looks like we are paying for two of our units...so I go to delete two obsolete warriors. That gives us an extra gold...hope that was a wise move on my part.

(16) 335 BC

No kidding...we know we are poor.

Pacal gets a great prophet.

Osaka worker>axe
Kyoto worker>barracks

(17) 320 BC

Pacal bulbed Theo with his great prophet...Convert to Christianity please!

(18) 305 BC

Pacal has been spying on us...shame on you Pacal!

Genghis wants Open borders...shove off.

(19) 290 BC

Monty converts to Judiasm...well that is good news!
Throws my Monty vs. Sulei theory out the window but who cares!

Satsuma axe>spy for Pacal and Genghis scouting

(20) 275 BC

Kyoto axe>settler
Osaka axeman>axeman

Drop science back to 50%...i think the 0/100% deal works better when you aren't scraping the bottom of the barrel with money. But I think it helped...a little.

Anyways, currency in five.

(21) 260 BC

Kagoshima grows to size two so I can whip the granary.

(22) 245 BC

Kago granary>library...need the culture.

English spy caught...

(23) 230 BC

Okay so maybe our war with Liz will be mostly fake.

I smell a razing in Coventrys future!

I was trying to time the settler from Osaka (lousy job of that btw) to pop right about the time currency hit so we could grab POS dot with the boon to our economy...oh well.

(24) 215 BC

Monty asks for OB...kinda feel like were at the point where we can do this but I pass since we are so close to a break. We can add those OBs at the beginning of the next set if its the right thing to do.

Satsuma spy>sword

Tell me this isn't perfect timing? Well if you can read it that is...

(25) 200 BC

Whew...last turn.
25 turns for currency...not bad

Osaka axe>placeholder axe

Well...not too bad...but not spectacular either.

Got my minimum two workers out with another one on the way.
Settler coming in 9 turns...but nowhere to put him. Stupid Coventry.

We are winning the culture battle over in Osaka...those four tiles should all be ours soon.

Decided to cottage over the spices and bananas...at least until we get calendar.
Which is still a ways off. Hopefully that isn't too much

Relatively quiet set.

EDIT: I put code of laws in the tech queue but I assume that we will want to resume our Masonry--->Construction tech path.
CoL wouldn't be a horrible choice for the courthouses, possibly founding Confusion, and the Chicken Pizza is a decent warmongers wonder (plus we have the stone to build it)

Roster
1. sturick <-- Just Played --
2. Diamondeye >> Up Now <<
3. goblinmarine <-- On Deck --
4. Liquidated
5. Whosit
6. S.ilver

 

[Whosit]

Sounds like a solid set, sturick. I approve the "more workers initiative!" Nice event for our archers, too. Hmm, any bets on how long the peace will last? It definitely looks like everyone is packed in and running out of space to expand. Shame about Coventry, but if we're drawn into war with Liz we can probably burn it without much trouble.

I hadn't heard about that 0%/100% trick, but I'm not a huge fan of micromanagement so it seems like more trouble than it's worth. Just my personal preference, though.

Haven't looked at the save, but I've been lurking the forums all morning and, uh, I think I'd better get some of my work done. But by all accounts we have a solid core that our workforce will continue to improve. I think we'll be in a good position when the hammer falls.

 

[sturick]

That archery event will be really nice when we get a GG settled somewhere.

Imagine this if you will...once we can build longbows, crossbows and pikes.
We would be able to make them Combat I and CGIII units right out of the box.

Our garrison in border cities could look like this:

Combat I-City Garrison III longbow (General Defense)
Combat I-City Garrison III xbow (Melee Unit Defense)
Combat II-Formation Pike (Mounted Unit Defense)

Pretty sweet if you ask me.