aCK-2 Seeing Red

[sturick]

Alright goblin...overall I think it was a good set.
I'll just throw out some random comments after looking at the save.

I like the monastery build in Tokyo. We haven't really designated city specialties yet but
Tokyo projects to be a commerce city with no hills in sight.

I don't think a monastery was necessary in Kyoto...I think you were fooled by the two scientists there. Made it look like more of a science city than it really is. A market would have been a better infra choice here imo. Gives us a happy to play with and gives a little boost to our economy. There is a benefit in being able to spread religion to Kagoshima for the slight culture boost, but unless we hold a holy city or own the AP I like to let the AI do our spreading for us.

Similar situation in Satsuma...library or market. I probably go with a market here...much closer call though. Rebuilding our sagging economy would take precedence over the culture and research of a library in my book. Third option that is reasonable too...more military or another worker since this is a hammer town. Now that cats are available we would like Satsumas queue open to cranking them out.

I like the looks of our blossoming SoD...well balanced stack.
If we leave two spears and two axes behind to protect Satsuma that will give us a current stack of:
4 swords
3 axes
1 spear

So to Whosit...crank out those axes (Pacals defense looks light on the archers so the axes will be far more effective than swords) and catapults. I'd say at least 6 cats and 2-3 more axes. Your guesstimates sounded good to me, but Silver can lay out what he would like for you. Setting up the hammer for Silver...yes very familiar to Boffo readers.

To field phants we need Horseback riding as well btw.

Dangit...there I go again...forgetting about prereqs. What is my deal lately???
Yet again Liq proves the old addage..."Even a drugged Liq is better at Civ than most."

I don't think that we need phants to make this war happen...thats just my take.
The only current civ that owns HBR is...you guessed it...Khan.
And even if we wanted to trade with him he's being stubborn.
Our tech rate is starting to slip...making a detour to HBR seems not worth the trouble.

I see we still need to get our OB deals figured out.
So my suggestion was to OB with Brennus, Monty, and Sully.
Does this sound right to the group?
Our current trade routes blow...all cities have 2 +1 routes...signing those OBs can only help us out in that regard right???

So for the tech path I would suggest CoL. Not very warmongerish I know.
However, it is 17 turns away...we can finish building up our cats and axes during that time.

2 cats in Kyoto in about 17 turns
1 cat and 1 axe from Satsuma in about 17 turns (if we put the library at the end of the queue)
3 cats from Osaka in about 17 turns.
We can two pop whip an axe from Tokyo to fix the happy issue then resume the market.

Thats 6 cats and 2 axes in 17ish turns...I like that.
I imagine that Silver will like it too.

Then when CoL hits we can build courthouses in Osaka and Tokyo (both have 4+ maintenance right now)
While Satsuma and Kyoto can provide reinforcements for the war efforts.

Enough rambling for now...need

 

[Diamondeye]

That sounds solid. Unless Pacal hooks up those horses, we will only need axes, cats, a couple of swords and lots of brutality. I love Pacal as a target.

 

[goblinmarine]

ok, i see what you mean about the library in satsuma, especially since pacal is our first target.

I still think that the monastery in kyoto wasn't a bad idea. it only took a few turns to build and since our economy is in the crapper at the moment, we're really relying on those two scientists. when I cued it up i realized that kyoto might only be on science for a little while, but it was a multiplier for the slider free science.... as we were only running one other scientist at the time, our economy is far from stellar, and we're about to build up and go to war, i figured that every little bit of slider free science might well be desperately needed. Just in case we get stuck in a XXX turns to currency slug crawl.

so pretty definite in satsuma. for kyoto i'll admit it may have been but it was with lots of reasoning behind it. Probably to the point where I talked myself into it when it wasn't needed.

On another note lets get this party started! looks like one more set and it'll be time for pacal to be assimilated (ok, i'll admit i really really wanted to use that smiley)

 

[sturick]

Notice I said that I would have built a market in Satsuma...then I turn around and say crank out military immediately.

Pot meet kettle.

So no worries about Satsuma mate. All was forgiven when you used the borg smiley.

As long as you put serious thought (which you clearly did) into your moves then you are fine in my book. Its when someone rushes through a set and make mistakes that I get peeved.

I wasn't trying to call either...just trying to stimulate conversation while Silver pounds the books and while Liq recuperates. Thats all.

 

[goblinmarine]

It's all good! Glad to have someone pointing out what they would have done instead.

Also, I don't think there's much hope that pacal will refrain from connecting the ponies to the rest of him empire. not a bad idea to build a few quick chariots to run around pillaging his strategic resources to keep him from building things beyond archers. looks like there's some kind of metal around one of his cities (the hill with the anvil symbol... gotta have something to get 5 or more production from one tile).

as far as whipping tokyo goes... i hadn't though to whip an axe or i'd have done that ASAP. I guess I was fixated on all those riverside cottages lol. if i'd remembered to stagnate it there wouldn't even be a problem.

satsuma is not in production mode right now... i think it's working mostly grassland cottages for the economy. it should grow into those grassland hill mines though.

 

[sturick]

Those horses are probably already connected actually...well the swords should provide enough cover from any chariots that Pacal might build. No HBR yet so we should be okay for a bit longer.

Satsuma could build a farm either 1S of the city or 1NW (this would provide easier future chain irrigation to the west btw as well as a commerce point) to get to size 6 faster. This would help us be able to whip the city occasionally. Later on when the happycap grows the farm will allow us to work the other mines.

Or we could bite the bullet and slowgrow to size 6 where we can work the other riverside mine to stagnate at size 6.

I would slowgrow to 6 while building the farm...this grows our riverside cottage in 14 turns too.
Toss up on which farm to plant.
If we don't have future plans for that forest I say to plant 1NW. This will give us some hammers towards a military build too.

As far as the tokyo whip deal goes...
Pretty sure waiting a turn to get some hammers into the axe will help a little...a little fuzzy on the whip mechanics right now.

Also don't be a goof like I was in a previous game...make sure its a twopop whip in this situation. I did a onepop whip once to poorly try and fix a similar problem. Just made the problem last 15 turns longer! Top five moment for me there.

 

[goblinmarine]

Yeah, the turn it got the unhappy i looked at whipping but it was just a 1 popwhip so I MM'ed it to shrink on it's own in 13 turns. It dealt with the unhappy faster than a 1 popwhip would have so I figured it was ok. Best I could come up with at the time, though slotting a military build to 2 popwhip (if that is indeed possible) would have been better.

 

[sturick]

Your plan would have worked just fine...the only drawback that I saw with it was that then you have to rebuild the food stores after the city shrinks which can take a while to do.

The whip plan just happens to coincide with a need we currently have...which is to build a massive SoD to Pacal.
Thats the main reason I like the whip better. Two birds with one stone.

 

[Whosit]

OK, so I'm poking around the save (I don't plan to play tonight because I am probably too tired to not screw up, but we'll see). Got a couple questions.

1st: Is the nearly done Jewish Missionary in Kyoto destined for Tokyo to build another Monastery?

2nd: What to do with the scientist specialists in Kyoto. Putting them to work on the mines will boost production, but firing them adds FIVE turns to researching Code of Laws. I'm not really sure what to do. It's also the difference between a 6 and 4 turn Swordsman.

3rd: Satsuma: Do we really want all those cottages? It's got decent production, but a farm or two would help us work more mines and assist in unit construction for the coming conflict. The only freshwater tile left is a forested grassland. I'm inclined to farm it.

4th: We probably don't want to do much tech trading, but if we get Monarchy we can build a winery to improve our happy cap (never mind if we revolt to Hereditary Rule). I'd like to know if attempting to trade our way up to that is worth it. Unfortunately, we'd be trading away Currency and Construction. We can get Priesthood from about anyone, and I know several have Monarchy.

5th: The spy building. Should I plant him in Maya land to wait and start a revolt, or should I hold him safe until we're close to go time?

6th: The coming Great Scientist. If this has been discussed, I just can't find it. It says he's bulbing Printing Press, but that can't be right. Do we want an academy somewhere? I don't know if it's worth many beakers right now, though.

Otherwise, I note the infant Stack of Doom and will add catapults and other miscellaneous goodies to it.

 

[sturick]

My semi-educated guesses to Whosits questions:

1: At first glance I thought it would be headed to Kago. But your idea makes more sense.
I rarely build monasteries in my solo games as I'm not really a big fan. As Tokyo seems to be our commerce capital spread Judaism there makes sense.

2: I keep both scientists in Kyoto. We grow to size 7 in 7 turns and we can stagnate with a grassland mine to boost production then.

3: I covered my thoughts on building a farm on the tile 1NW of Satsuma earlier. We are in agreement it seems.

4: I don't see any good tech trade opportunities at the moment. I generally don't like to trade currency as it helps opponents out quite a bit. If two decent techs come up that we can trade Construction for I would likely pull the trigger there.

5: Silver might have plans for the spy...a revolt is a little too costly at the moment with our measly 4 EPs/turn. If it were up to me I would scout out Genghis lands...but I will defer to Silver here.

6: If we could bulb PP I would say take that in a heartbeat...however it looks like the bulb will bring Aesthetics. Tough call but I would lean towards getting Aes with the bulb. I mentioned earlier about building the SoZ in Osaka. This would allow that. 17ish turns to build it in Osaka and the +10 would be very helpful in that city. But that would slow down growth of our SoD. So long story short...we could build the SoZ after we crank out the war machines.

Hope this helps...or at least doesn't hurt.

 

[Whosit]

Thanks sturick, I think that gives me enough guidance. I'll play my set now, so if there's any other instructions, "speak now or forever hold your peace."

 

[S.ilver]

Thanks for bearing with me, and for keeping this thread alive with discussion while myself and Liq were out of the picture.

By and large, I agree with most of the discussion, not a lot to add there. But I'll say a few things regardless.

-Stack composition looks ok. Obviously we need some cats, but we just got Construction so yeah . 4 to 6 cats would work, the more we have, the longer we can sustain the offensive obviously.

-Not sure why we are building spies. We have no EPs to take advantage of at this stage of the game, and I'd prefer more military units.

In retrospect, when dealing with spies to revolt cities, do NOT use Boff-03 as a baseline example. That was serious desperation tactics there, as Cathy had Castles + Chicken Pizza making it impossible to knock down her city defense. That usually only occurs medieval; when Catapults are the weapon of choice, city defenses can be taken down relatively quickly, and Cannons & Artillery can level city defenses without a sweat.

-In regards to Tokyo, switch it to a Catapult for one turn, and then 2-pop it the next turn. We need the catapult anyways.

-We should secure OB with Genghis and Brennus to improve relations. They like each other and are the same religion, meanwhile we can't even see Monty so we really don't care if he gets pissed. We also don't want to get dogpiled by both of them, and Brennus is in WHEOOH already (pray for war against Liz). We've also been denying ourselves lucrative trade routes for a while now.

-The GS bulbs Aesthetics. After we pick up CoL, we can bulb Phil. Aes makes decent enough trade bait, although see the following point.

-PLEASE pick up priesthood + sailing from Genghis. He is the last AI to not have Alpha, just take everything he'll give. Priesthood will cheapen CoL. HOWEVER, this deal will switch bulb priority to Compass before Aes, so best to settle the GS for the extra beakers. Tokyo has commerce priority, and needs the extra hammer anyways.


I've lost my train of thought all of a sudden, so I was probably going to say something else, but it's likely minor.

 

[Whosit]

Ah, glad for the pointers S.ilver. I'm actually in the middle of my set, and, uh, not to spoil anything, but I think I will have to commit ritual suicide by the time I'm finished to make up for my incompetence. I did end up making the Alphabet trade since I noticed it, but I can't really get any good deals for Aesthetics, but I'll give it another look.

Peace has been shattered, forever. We have been attacked; unforgivable losses have been sustained. There shall be vengeance.

Kinda throws our original plans out the window.

 

[Whosit]

aCK(bar)-2: It's a trap!

Pre-Turn: Turn 183, 145 AD

But how could they be jamming us if they don't know . . . Oh, wait, that's wrong!

Satsuma: I slot in a 10 turn catapult in place of the Library.

I notice a worker near Tokyo has not been given an appropriate moniker. In an attempt to make up for my own oversight on my last set, I christen him "Toku's 'Mortification.'"

I note that Liz already has Aesthetics. Although sturick suggested that Osaka focus on military builds, I might start building the Statue of Zeus and hope that we can beat the English to it. Erk, according to our trade advisor, she already has Ivory, too. I'm not sure how long she's had the tech, but no one else has it, so maybe not for long. If we're lucky, she might be working on a different wonder.

I'm afraid that the Builder in me is going for a Whosit Gambit.

Anyway, everything else seems to be in order, so off we go!

Turn 184, 160 AD

Kyoto: Jewish Missionary < Catapult (7 turns)

Osaka: Spy < Pyramids (placeholder. How have they not been built yet?)

Oh, nice event. A collapsed wedding has created tensions between the Celts and English. Like they didn't have enough reasons to go at each other already!

Brennus is still in fist mode, but so is Genghis! I hope he's not gunning for us . . . . Oh, that's right, I need to open some borders! At least it only took me one turn to remember. I talk to Brennus, Monty, and Sully as suggested by the team.

Spoiler :

Doesn't net us a ton of gold since we only have trade routes with the Ottomans. Oh well.

John Dalton is our scientist and he can indeed bulb Aesthetics. I do so. Sorry, forgot to take a screen shot of the tech.

Send the Missionary to Tokyo.

Switch Osaka to the 17 turn SoZ and pray.

I take matters into my own hands when I notice the Genghis is the only one who lacks the Alphabet. Even though I know he may attack us, I'd rather that we get something for it than another AI. We can get Sailing, Priesthood, and 50 gold. I take it because, as I mentioned, Alphabet isn't doing us any good otherwise.

The good news is that our commerce jumps! Income goes from +0 to +6 at 30%, and shaves 2 turns off of CoL for 13 turns. I slide research up to 40% for break even and 11 turns CoL.

And, um, that's everything that anyone will actually trade to us for now. Maybe Monarchy will be available next turn, in which case I will carefully consider our options.

End turn.

Turn 185, 175 AD

Geez, I must have really gotten Khan's hopes up or something. Now he thinks that giving us 20 gold for Construction is a fair deal. Ha ha ha, you're so cute when you're delusional, Genghis.

Spoiler :

Judaism spreads to Tokyo.

Lookin' at the trade screen. Don't like what I see. Now, even if the AIs would trade fairly, things are just balanced poorly. Construction equals Calendar, and Aesthetics equals Monarchy, but anyone who has Calendar has Construction. I can only get Monarchy by giving away Construction, and I can't really leverage Construction to get a second tech due to the way the cards fell, I won't do a trade. No need to recreate my last trading disaster!

End the turn.

Turn 186, 190 AD

$#^^$#@$ Khan declares war on us. I wasn't paying attention to our borders and his horsemen punked a couple of our workers. We lost "Discomposure" and another. That was really bad oversight on my part. I should have put an escort on them. Good news is that his initial invasion is relatively small and all horseback. Pacal is not in Fisty mode, but I'll prepare as though I'm expecting him to attack any moment, too.

Lacking a better idea for our remaining workers, I decide to chop a grassland forest for Osaka to speed the SoZ. They've been building cottages, anyway, so why not. Two go to Osaka, two to chop a forest at Kyoto to assist military builds.

There's a lone horseman in the woods, I'm gonna see if I can take him out with a spearman. 73% odds with no upgrades. Gonna try Combat II. 86%. Well . . . I go for it. We win. He'll upgrade again next turn if he lives. We only have a couple more spears in the town, but I send one out to cover our wounded man.

Nothing much else to do this turn but wait. I'm going to plan to fight a defensive war simply because we're not in a position to invade anyone yet, and taking Khan territory gives us a long, hard to defend front when we war with Pacal, I think.

I'll see if I can make up for those workers, but unlikely given a war going on.

End turn.

Turn 187, 205 AD

Some more of Khans cronies coming from the west.

Spoiler :

Kagoshima: Library < Walls (4 turns). Just in case.

I upgrade the wounded spearman to Formation. Now he's a super horse killer.

Checking trades again. Khan seems to have Construction now. Only a few lack it, but I can't make any decent trades with it. Suleiman wants Construction AND 25 gold for Monarchy. Meh. The main reason I don't trade is because the only town that extra happy would help at this point is Tokyo.

I'm really not sure what to do with workers at this point, since cottages are all over the place. I just start roads, I guess . . . .

Wait to see what Khan does next turn. Should be able to take out his mounts then.

Turn 188, 220 AD

He, uh, sends his mounted units at our town. And spears. Two withdraw, heavily wounded (the Keshiks). Chariots die.

I go and punk the horses before they can do any real damage, like kill more workers. One falls to a swordsman. Same with the second. I wanted to keep the spears close to the main front.

Fortify spy in Satsuma for lack of better ideas.

Not sure what to do with the axe on a hill. I could whack a scout that's nearby, but that's probably a waste. A swordsman and a keshik are in the jungle. *sigh* Eventually workers can clear this ground. Send a spear to cover the axe, hoping Khan attacks.

Turn 189, 235 AD

Pacal wants open borders. Bug off!

After taking a look at S.ilver's suggestions, I reconsider making some tech trades.

I can trade Aesthetics AND Construction to Suleiman for Monarchy. Since he's the only one aside from Liz who lacks it (and I know enough not to trade with Liz), it's not that bad . . . I can get Calendar from Monty for Priesthood, Aesthetics, and 20 gold. I can trade Aesthetics to Pacal for 100 gold and to Brennus for 60. Could get 90 from Khan, but, uh, we're at war.

I'll do those trades. Hopefully it's not as stupid as I think it is.

Alternatively, Suleiman will declare on Khan for Aesthetics. Um . . . naw. I don't think we'd be well served by that.

Arg! Stupid trade things. Monty won't take the deal now, I guess since Aesthetics isn't worth as much now that I've traded to Suleiman. In desperation, I throw Currency in, too, since just about everyone has that, too. No, he wants gold, too.

*Sigh* I bite the bullet, and kick myself. I guess this is what happens when you only have devalued techs to work with? The only reason I'm doing this trade is because I'm not sure what else we'll have to trade for Calendar later. Most Civs already have CoL.

Well, now we have some cash. I leave research at 40% for now, though, since it would cost 40 gold to cut a turn off of CoL. Doesn't seem worth it at this point.

At least I can build planations and wineries, now. I start a plantation on one of the spices. I'll do the winery later, when I can spare an escort for the border (Brennus is still prepping for war . . . .).

Turn 190, 250 AD

Khan does us the favor of moving his troops onto the open, but they pillage a hamlet by Satsuma.

There's a Keshik and a Swordsman and we don't really have good initial odds from anything.

Promote a Sword to Combat II. One more promotion. Khans Sword is Combat II. If I give our sword Formation, he'll fight the sword for even odds. Combat III means he'll still fight the horse. Shock is kinda useless here. I do Combat III and hope for the best. 66% odds. Bleh. But we win! Now the swordsman is vulnerable to an Axe attack!

72% odds with no upgrades. I Shock our Axe. (I hope my promotions are not too much )

88%. A bit better . . . . That does it.

Khan has a scout across the border of Kagoshima, taunting the axemen. With no Open Borders with Pacal, can't touch him. Getting open borders just to kill a scout would be silly, but he's stil bugging me!

Also, I have apparently not killed enough of Khan's troops to get him to talk.

8 turns to SoZ.

4 turns to CoL.

Turn 191, 265 AD

Kagoshima: Walls < Barracks (4 turns)

Oh, and Montezuma has declared war on Elizabeth! Perhaps things will start rolling in the east, now.

Spy finds Khan's town Tabriz northwest of Satsuma. Garrison isn't too big, so with a couple catapults, might be able to burn it. It doesn't look like it's anything we want to keep.

Turn 192, 280 AD

Khan's scouts enter our territory . . . .

And Liz "asks" for Currency. No way.

Kyoto: Spearman < Catapult (6 turns).

Punk one scout near Satsuma with a Swordsman. Can't reach the second this turn. At least scouts can't attack; he' right next to our workers!

Turn 193, 295 AD

Satsuma: Catapult < Catapult (9 turns)

Get the other with the new spearman. Another Swordsman/Keshik pair have entered our lands. Both Combat II. Put a spear/axe in the woods to keep 'em out.

What to do with workers? I'm gonna cut down more trees near Kyoto, I guess, to fuel our war machine.

Turn 194, 310 AD

Urgh, the troops I put in the woods are dead. A couple mounted units came out of the fog that I wasn't anticipating. I should probably have promoted those two units instead of saving the promotions for healing. My bad, my bad. Spearman killed a Keshik, and the Axeman killed the swordsman, but a second Keshik got the wounded a spear, and a Chariot mopped up the Axeman.

Code of Laws.

I'm not sure what to pick. I select Metal Casting while I decide. We get a Great General, and Hinduism spreads to Satsuma.

In the meantime, I finish off the wounded enemies.

I decide to settle the Great General in Kyoto. I don't think that we have any units that would benefit us greatly by being linked up with it . . . . Actually, never mind. Since there are several decision points, and I've messed up enough already, I'll stop here. I was just hoping to end the war before I finished but . . . .

Spoiler :

So, report summary:

I let us get sucker-punched and lose two workers because I didn't heed the warnings (I deluded myself into hoping that the Hindu Khan meant to attack Liz ALL THE WAY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF US). I manage to hold of Khan's meager forces at that point, but I end up losing us a spearman (which we have precious few of) and an axeman due to an error of judgement. Otherwise, no combat losses.

War in the east has started, but only Montezuma has declared on Liz so far. Brennus is still preparing. That must be some hammer he's building.

Khan has a small nearby town that we can raze/take-to-trade and maybe end the war faster. We have a couple of catapults ready, so that might be enough. The town only has 20% cultural bonus and I don't THINK it's on a hill (forgot to check). Posting report and save now, will add pictures in a bit.

 

[S.ilver]

I got it, but I'm still at school, so I can't really play it right now. I will get to it tonight/tomorrow morning.

I will say that my/Liq's absence has really hurt the specialization and micromanaging of the civ, which is crucial at this stage in the game (5 cities). I will comment more in my report, as a lot of stuff needs fixing. But yeah, we'll take the blame for that because we weren't offering suggestions

 

[sturick]

I don't know that ritual suicide is the answer Whosit. This is a learning game so let the negative roll off your back. Your pregame post had me thinking the worst...we got dogpiled and lost a city...something like that. Glad that isn't the case. Nothing Silver can't fix!

I think that you did fine minimizing our losses once Genghis declared. Two units on our end...many more on his. That is pretty good. Your promos seemed on point to me.
The Keshik fog attack was a surprise no doubt...that is what you could have used the spy for...a little bit of heads up.

The loss of the workers is upsetting...but their loss will be felt more when we annex new territory.
Unfortunately, the last worker added to the queue was during my set and we aren't really in a position to add more for a while.

The tech trading isn't really my strong suit...but nice job recognizing the Alpha trade with Genghis. I didn't see that one at all...told you!

Whosit...a good learning exercise...if you have the time.
Look at the city screens and see what you would change. Either with tile reshuffling or with changing the build queue. Silver is very good at reorganzing things when he starts his sets. See if what you would do matches up with what he does.

 

[goblinmarine]

Whosit, I'm with sturick.

This is a learning game, the idea is for us to make mistakes so that we can critique each other and hear what silver and liq (senseis of civ-fu) have to say. I know my set was far from perfect. I messed up things that I had planned to do... missing MM that you just planned 10 minutes ago is kind of a mistake. Just read what others say about your set and try to learn from it.

I like the tech trades and how you did defending our civ from the mongol horde (I find the city wall episode of south park playing in my head).
It looks like bulbing aes did help us backfill quite a bit... and I like the SoZ. In a game where we hope to be at war a lot, at the very least it's important to deny it from an AI.
Personally, with the exception of the worker loss sucker punch I don't see anything wrong with your set. And as things go, having a keshik leap out of the fog at workers is something I sure wouldn't have thought to prepare for.

 

[Whosit]

Well, thanks for the support guys. You're right: It is meant to be a learning game, and I learned some valuable lessons when it comes to trusting guys with funny facial hair. Though I'll still take the blame on the workers because I did know that Khan was in WHEOOH mode; my only defense is that he struck just a couple turns after going into it.

I'll try and do what you suggested, sturick, regarding the micromanagement of the cities to compare with what S.ilver eventually does. I know that I stagnated Kyoto and Osaka to maximize production for unit/wonder construction and because they had reached their happy limits. I think that Tokyo was stagnated for the same reason.

I forgot to mention that I did NOT revolt to Hereditary Rule. It would have helped the happy cap, but I was so worried about the war that I feared losing a turn or two of production, though after some thought, maybe the higher happy cap would have helped in the long-run since Kyoto could have been grown to work more mines.

On a side note: Does the AI always "destroy" workers that it attacks? I've gathered that that is the case, but I'm still a relatively recent Civ IV convert and so I'm used to AIs capturing workers in Civ III.

Edit: Notes on possible Micro-management.

Kyoto. The spice plantation just finished, so the happy cap is now 7/8. There is a single unit for garrison, so if we revolted to HR and hooked up the wine, it would be 7/10. I see one mistake as-is, which is odd considering I took note of it before it reached size 7 . . . . I apparently set it to work a grassland mine that was not adjacent to a river even though a river-side one was available. The one commerce doesn't really make much difference now, but it should be fixed nonetheless.

Building a couple farms to speed growth, and then another mine, the town could stagnate at 10 working a farm and two more mines (having moved off of one of the farms after it grew large enough).

Osaka: Another mistake, and I'm not sure how this happened because I was sure that it was stagnated, but it seems that when the spice plantation was build, the governor moved a citizen from a mine to the plantation for growth. For now, until the SoZ is finished, move back to the mine to cut completion time from 6 turns to 4. If we want to grow the town after that, we can start working the plantation and maybe a grassland cottage? I probably wouldn't expect much growth until we steal back the riverside tiles and can build a few farms. Though I'm not sure that's the best course of action. I'm really not sure what to do with this city over the long-run.

Tokyo: Well, the bananas are cottaged, it's not terribly mature yet, but even so, I'm not sure that I'd build a plantation over them unless we really need the health. Happy of 6/7, garrison of two, so potential cap of 6/10. If we want to speed growth, working the pastured pigs is enough until we work more cottages. I would probably cut down the last riverside jungle and build a cottage to squeeze an extra commerce out of there.

Satsuma: Well, with two workers down and this town seeing a lot of action, probably no improvements in the near future. Unless we can give workers a very heavy escort, but seeing as how I lost a couple troops in the woods, probably not. I was going to chop down the riverside forest to make a farm. Expand farms once we get Civil Service, so that we can work all the mines. Probably cottage everything else.

Oh, right, I'm supposed to be talking MM, not long-term so much. Well, it's growing, slowly. For the time being I'd stick the eventual new citizen on a grassland mine. Oh, and due to Khan's antics, we're working a 1-commerce cottage instead of a 2-commerce riverside cottage.

Kagoshima? Could work a cottage instead of the grassland forest for a bit of extra money . . . . Otherwise, not enough good tiles to really shuffle, it seems.

 

[sturick]

Whosit...two things I did noticed after looking at the save...

aCK(bar)-2: It's a trap!
But how could they be jamming us if they don't know . . . Oh, wait, that's wrong!

How long were you waiting to bust that one out???
Funny stuff...your reports here and in other games are commendable.
Informative and they crack me up too...keep it up!

You made the trades for Monarchy and Calendar during the middle of your set.
They seemed fine to me but tech trading is easily the weakest aspect of my gameplay...so take that with a grain of salt.

Anyhoo...you struggled with worker actions when you could have hooked up the bananas, spices, and wine. You may have started this already as it looks like you got Osakas spices already...but Kagos probably was more urgent for two reasons.

1) Kago doesn't have any kind of food and the spices would provide a small boost there.
2) OK just one reason...oops!

EDIT: Whosit...remember that many of the MM things that can be fixed are a result of poor AI governing too. On my turns I go through my cities at the beginning of my turn. Always a good idea. But then I also go through the cities again every 3-4 turns or so...helps to fix these problems as they come up as well as catching optimal whip opportunities. This adds quite a bit of time to your gameplay but the benefit is that you can build a wonder a turn or two faster for example.

 

[Whosit]

I actually just came up with that joke/reference before I started playing my set. I had no idea it would turn out so prophetic!

You're right about the spices at Kagoshima. The main reason I didn't hook those up first, and yet, is because I was worried that Khan might strike through Pacal's territory, and I didn't think I would be able to adequately protect the workers there. Certainly a priority once peace returns.

I'm starting to get the idea that tech trading is the weakest link for most non-veteran players. Heh heh. I probably should track down some of the in-depth analysis for what AIs value and such-and-such and pay more attention to who is whom's worst enemy (before I installed BUG, I'm not sure that there was any way to tell).