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[MrRandomGuy]

lurker's comment:

Surely you're better off without paying the unit support...

That's why I said it depends. If cash isn't an issue and your empire is flourishing several dozen siege weapons couldn't hurt.

In a game like this, probably only need just a select few to bombard any hostile invaders.

It depends...
On Deity level this statement may be correct. However on levels up to and including Monarch, siege weapons only slow you down. Without catapults, domination/conquest can be achieved much faster than with catapults. These shields are better invested into additional horsemen. Better risk the occasional loss of a horseman once in a while, than to have a huge amount of shields wasted on slow and useless catapults.


Emperor/Demigod are a border case. Sometimes the AI has so many defensive units, that siege weapons make sense in order to reduce losses, but in most cases (especially with a good start position) I play domination/conquest games also on these levels without siege weapons. (Experience seems to support this: whenever I manage to capture a couple of siege weapons from the AI, I may use them in the next 1-2 attacks, but already after 5 turns they are so far behind the current front line (especially when I have Cavalry) that I usually disband them.)

Again this really depends. Personally I find that my invasion waves are much more successful if I include a bunch of siege weapons up to cannons. Yes it does take a little longer for total conquest, but the length of time measured in turns would probably only differ in a handful of turns. In addition, siege weapons have the potential to knock a size 6+ city all the way down to size 1. This significantly reduces the defense of whatever unit is defending in the city AND reduces unhappiness/flip risk when the city is conquered.

But like I said from the beginning I'm more of a conquest person than space ship victory person so the strategies I would normally use don't necessarily apply in this game. I think a few siege weapons are necessary just in case we might need them quickly. The only time we would need dozens is if we were to decide to exterminate a Civ.

 

[CommandoBob]

Pondering
We build a settler this IBT. And if we send it to City Site #7, it will stand around for three turns before it can become a city. That seems like a waste.

Instead we could send it to City Site #9 or elsewhere and send the next settler to City Site #7.

However, as I looked at the dot map I saw something good. Oslo has been razed. We have access to Iron and Dyes.

No Oslo

City Site 10A is on a gold hill, and 10B is on a jungle tile which allows us to claim that Iron.

City Site 11 lets us claim the two bananas and Dyes.

Could one of these places be the home for our next settler?

 

[MrRandomGuy]

I would suggest settling on 10B to get immediate access to iron without the need to expand cultural borders. If we settle on 10A, another city can be built on the ruins of Oslo thus removing iron from our control. I'd choose 11 to go to next.

 

[choxorn]

Absolutely, go for 10B to grab that Iron, and thank you, England.

I would also say that 11 should be the city after 10B to grab the dyes, and because it's a location the AI is much more likely to attempt to settle than 7 or 9. But, yes, 10B should certainly go first, we need that Iron.

 

[Lanzelot]

Yes, go grab that territory! #7 can wait for the next settler. However, I would suggest to settle 1S of 10b (or perhaps 1S of 10a) and then move #11 1SW on the coast!

Take a decent number of units to that new town, because we now need to be very careful! If England also burns down Bergen, it means "Goodbye to our Golden Age"!!! Bergen by now should already have put a decent amount of shields into the Mausoleum and will finish it within the next 15-20 turns. If it gets burned down now, the Mausoleum may be built on another continent!
Try if you can block access to Bergen for the British troops. The Vikings appear to be losing badly at the moment. (What on earth has gotten into them, attacking a much stronger neighbor while building wonders?!? How can they jeopardize "our" Mausoleum!!)

BTW: I assume, whenever Oasenstadt doesn't need 3 floodplains, you are sharing one of them with the Siedler von Catan?

 

[Lanzelot]

In addition, siege weapons have the potential to knock a size 6+ city all the way down to size 1.

This is actually another reason against using siege weapons: I like to take the entire population and then cash-rush 3-4 slaves over the next 6-8 turns, until they hit size 1. This "free" worker power (remember: you don't pay unit upkeep for them) is immensly valuable from the middle age right into the industrial age. At first they will build war roads in the captured territory to speed up the war, then build improvements for semi-core towns and in the end help to get the rail network up quickly. After the rail network is done, I usually join my native workers into cities and only keep the slaves as "pollution fighters". Saves a lot of upkeep.

This significantly reduces the defense of whatever unit is defending in the city AND reduces unhappiness/flip risk when the city is conquered.

A unit in a size 6 town has the same defense bonus as a unit in a size 1 town, namely none at all (except for the usual terrain defensive bonus). Only at size 7 (and again at size 13) a city gets an extra defensive bonus!

 

[choxorn]

Capturing a wonder someone else built can count for a Golden Age?

 

[dalgo]

Capturing a wonder someone else built can count for a Golden Age?

lurker's comment: Yes it can, however you still have to build a wonder yourself to trigger the Golden Age

 

[tjs282]

Yes, thanks Liz -- you vandal!

Now we've got the space, why not settle on the ruins of Oslo? Or even better, 1NE from the ruins, since the new city would then have access to freshwater (which Oslo didn't -- and neither do any of the other spots suggested). I know it would take 2 more turns for the Settler to get there rather than 10B (or one more turn than to 1S of 10B), but a city at that point on the Bergen/Trondheim river (in addition to 'Goldbergstadt', not instead of it) would expand our borders all the way to the eastern coastline, and cut off the northern half of the continent from the ravening English hordes. And if a worker was sent along with the Settler and its military escort, it would take 9T to road/clear and mine the ruins, just in time for the first growth...

Settling SE rather than W/NW of the Iron would also 'trap' it 2 tiles (i.e. 2T for a 1-move unit) behind our border, so we could boot any (English) invaders before they had a chance to pillage the mountain road (that we'd have to build to get the iron, wherever we settled). More to the point, if the roaded iron-mountain is 'behind' the city relative to incoming invaders, they can't use it as a base to attack the city (but we could use it as a fortification-point to block further access to Goldbergstadt and K'berg -- if we need to!).

In the 6T (see the attached map) the new Settler will need to slog through the Marsh/Jungle towards Oslo's ruins, O'stadt would have the next Settler available to build City 7 (Spot 7 will long since be drained) and have started on a third. I agree that one should go to found Bananen(baum)bucht (="Banana(-tree) Bay") 1SW (or even 2SW?) of CommandoBob's Spot 11, and we can then back-fill Spot 10A (I think that would be best, if we do build 1NE of Oslo) and Spot 9 (assuming we're still going to put a city there?) at our leisure, as our Workers send roads out to Neu-Oslo and B'bucht.

I think it would also be good to eventually have a city on one of the tiles adjacent to the river delta emptying into the southern end of lagoon. ("And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony...")

 

[Lanzelot]

Hmm, I like that plan! I didn't want to settle on that river, because a) it is just one tile away from the coast and b) doesn't connect the dyes (which are way more important than the iron there, at the moment: the Copenhagen iron will be ours long before we'll have connected the Oslo iron...).
But a) we can still found a coastal town 2 or 3 tiles SE of Neu-Oslo and b) the dyes will fall into our territory, when we settle SW of 11 (which will be soon enough, as a road to that area will still take a long time). So yes, my vote goes for tjs282's dotmap.

Perhaps in a slightly different order: 10a (Goldbergstadt) first, as the gold will already give some decent income, then 7 (Wilhelmshaven would be a fitting name!), then Neu-Oslo, then Bananenbucht and finally 9?

BTW: Queen Lizzy is indeed behaving worse than Attila...

 

[tjs282]

I didn't want to settle on that river, because a) it is just one tile away from the coast

Yes, but Ragnar built very loose, and there's loads of space to found at least 2 or 3 coastal cities further north, roughly ESE and ENE of Bergen (if the Vikings haven't done so already?).

and b) doesn't connect the dyes (which are way more important than the iron there, at the moment: the Copenhagen iron will be ours long before we'll have connected the Oslo iron...).

I agree that the Dyes are currently more important to keep our people happy, but it's going to take a long time to hook them up, too (20+T, even with 2 or 3 Workers on the project, see below). Also, I tend to get a little paranoid when I only have one Iron hooked/ accessible, because of its tendency to disappear suddenly at the most inconvenient moments So I like to have at least 2 Irons roaded/accessible at all times, especially while my territory is still this small (once we own the continent, disappearing/ reappearing resources become much less of an issue).

Incidentally, CommandoBob, do we know yet if we're on the largest continent on the map?

But a) we can still found a coastal town 2 or 3 tiles SE of Neu-Oslo and b) the dyes will fall into our territory, when we settle SW of 11 (which will be soon enough, as a road to that area will still take a long time).

Roading the Hills south of K'berg, 16T with 2 workers, plus another 4T to road the jungle (CommandoBob's Spot11) with 3 Workers before going 1E to road the Dyes in another 4T.

Perhaps in a slightly different order: 10a (Goldbergstadt) first, as the gold will already give some decent income, then 7 (Wilhelmshaven would be a fitting name!), then Neu-Oslo, then Bananenbucht and finally 9?

I can see the sense in getting the immediate gold-commerce benefit, but that also means delaying Neu-Oslo's founding by at least another 16T (10T to build 2 Settlers and 6T to move one of them to Neu-Oslo) -- so how are we going to stop Liz plonking a city(s) somewhere we don't want it, and grabbing all those resources in the meantime? Or are we not going to bother, just raze any misplaced city(s) after we acquire it/them?

 

[CommandoBob]

BTW: I assume, whenever Oasenstadt doesn't need 3 floodplains, you are sharing one of them with the Siedler von Catan?

I think that flood plain is being worked by Königsberg. I will have to check.

 

[Lanzelot]

@tjs282: usually the AI is very slow at founding new towns while at war. (Could be that they simply stop building settlers, while at war, and only use up the ones they had started before war broke out?!)

@CommandoBob: yes, but Oasenstadt can give it's spare floodplain to Königsberg, which in turn gives the one in question to Siedler von Catan. That's not a problem. Sometimes in my micro-management I even give a tile from a city at one end of my empire to a city on the other end... Just "shifting" it through the entire chain of cities in between.

 

[choxorn]

Seems like an interesting idea. One change I'd like to make: Instead of settling in 10A, why not 1NE of 10A, to be on the river?

 

[CommandoBob]

5 Part II 0450 BC

City Count
12 England (+1)
10 Japan (new)
08 Scandanavia (-1)
08 India
07 Germany (Acronym01 People)
06 China

Swap tiles to get Catan a flood plain for a turn or so.

New settler will head to 1NE of ruins of Oslo.
Send Warrior from Oasenstadt to Königsberg to serve as pathfinder.
Next turn's new vSpear will head there, too.
Will have rSpear in Königsberg escort the settler.
Debating about having our 'spare' vHorse help defend also. Probably will but do not know when to send it.
​

[IBT]
Oasenstadt: settler -> settler in 6.
Hamburg: vSpear -> vSpear in 4.

6 0430 BC

MM Oasenstadt to be on track; 4 shields, +5 food, grow in 2.

Move vHorse 1S, now 1E of Königsberg.
New vSpear moves into the capital.

Workers
Worker 1SW of München, send westwards to 1S-1SW of Oasenstadt, to irrigate and road for City #7. This was planned for another worker but I overlooked that planned move somehow.
Worker 1SE of München, roads the grass.
Oslo or Bust!, our new settler, moves into Königsberg.
​

[IBT]
See some action around Mt. Oslo. England loses a Warrior, Vikings lose an Archer.

Königsberg: worker -> worker in 5.

7 0410 BC

VSpear moves into Königsberg.
Wake rSpear in Königsberg and escort Oslo or Bust!.
VHorse moves 1S, onto a mountain.

Workers
New worker moves to 1S-1SW of Oasenstadt.
Oslo or Bust! moves 1E and 1SE, onto a hill.
Move worker now 1E of Königsberg 1N across the river.
Worker 1S of Eisenstadt moves 1SW and begins to mine a roaded hill, 12WT. When completed, this tile can be shared between Eisenstadt, Königsberg and München.
​

[IBT]
The Statue of Zeus is built in Madras, India.
India will have War Elephants and Ancient Cavlary.

8 0390 BC

vSpear follows the others to the new city site.

Workers
Second worker joins the miner for the Tri-City Mine, 6WT.
Oslo or Bust! and escort move 1S onto grassland.
Worker 1S-1SE of Oasenstadt begins to irrigate, 4WT.
Worker 1W of Eisendstadt, irrigation and roading done, moves 1N of that to city to repeat his work.

In Oasenstadt, now at size 6, we work 2 flood plains, 2 irrigated plains, mined oasis and mined hill. The mined hill gives extra commerce, which we need with just one MP. Working the forest gains no commerce and we get an unhappy citizen. Still 7 shields, +3 food.
Get a flood plain to Catan.
​

[IBT]
English Archer moves onto Mt. Olso, which means we cannot. Blast.

9 0370 BC

England has learned Construction.
India knows both Currency and Monarchy; both are monopoly techs.


Workers
Worker 1S of München moves 2NW onto a hill. Republic is in five turns, but too soon to irrigate.
Oslo or Bust! and escort move 1S, grassland to jungle.
Worker 1N of Eisenstadt irrigates, 4WT.
​

[IBT]
English Archer leaves Mt. Oslo.

Hamburg: vSpear -> vHorse in 6.

England is building The Temple of Artemis (Polytheism -> Education).
But...
The Temple of Artemis is built in Karakorum, Mongolia.


10 0350 BC

China has learned Code of Laws.

New Spear goes to Oasenstadt.
Move Horse and Warrior onto future home of Oslo or Bust!.

Workers
City Site #7 is now grassland.
Road the hill 1NW of München, 6WT.
At City Site #7, fortify two workers and leave one active, for the next player to allocate.
Oslo or Bust! and escort move onto Mt. Olso.

In Oasenstadt, work an irrigated plains instead of mined hill to get +4 food to grow on the IBT. We are producing 6 shields this turn.
​

And the save is attached.

 

[CommandoBob]

One new city, Die Siedler von Catan, often referred to as just Catan.
One razed city, Olso.
One settler, Oslo or Bust!, ready to build around the ruins of Oslo.
With an rSpear Escort.
vSpear one turn behind.
VHorse and rWarrior scouting ahead.

The Oslo Expansion

City Site #12 is where Oslo or Bust! is headed.
City Sites #9 to #11 are still available.
No roads exist in this area.

City Site #7 (the Red Circle) is now a grassland, 'capable of supporting life as we know it'.

If we try to claim City Site #11, the fastest way there is just to move 4S from Königsberg. It is actually closer to Königsberg than City Site #9. And both are the same number of turns away from Oasenstadt (five).

Random Stuff

Oasenstadt will produce a settler next turn.

We are still Weak compared to England and Average compared to the Vikings. But if we are trying to do a land grab around Olso and Double-Banana-Dyes, we need to squeeze out a few more vSpears for these front line cities. If I had not planned to just build 2 vSpears, I would have started on a third instead of switching back to a vHorse. We need to be mindful of our relative strength compared to these two, but as long as they are fighting each other we can build our own forces.

Republic is just four turns away. We should have about 3 to 4 turns of anarchy, based on our small size.

Worker Locations/Tasks (NW to SE)
Three workers on City Site #7. Two are fortified, one is still acitve. If I were to keep playing, would move a worker into each of the adjacent plains tiles to irrigate and road. The last worker would move 1N onto the road and find other work next turn. But I don't want to commit the next player to my plans when these guys could be put to better use.
The new settler will take two turns to arrive at its new home. Moving 1W or 1SW, it must cross a river.
One worker 1N of Eisenstadt, irrigating plains, 3WT to go, followed by a road.
One worker 1S-1SW of Oasenstadt, irrigating plains, 2WT to go, followed by a road.
Two workers 1N-1NE of Königsberg, mining a roaded hill, 4 turns to go. This mine can be shared with three cities, Königsber, Eisenstadt and München.

We do not have any road or workers in the Oslo area.


Military
01 Settler
08 Worker
06 Warrior
01 Archer
03 Spearman
06 Horse
02 Curragh

Current Units: 27
Allowed Units: 28
Support Costs: 0 gpt

Republic in 4, 1 geek Science, 30% Luxury, +23 gpt, 454 gold.

 

[CommandoBob]

More About Die Siedler von Catan

Wikipedia: The Settlers of Catan.

Dicetower Review:

Link to video.

TableTop Gameplay:

Link to video.

TableTop Gameplay with Star Trek Catan

Link to video.

 

[choxorn]

Have we switched to 10-turn turnsets now? I thought we were still doing 20-turn turnsets.

Acronym is up, right? I haven't heard from him for a while, when did he say he was getting back from his vacation?

1. Acronym <-- UP
2. Lanzelot <-- On Deck
3. MrRandomGuy
4. tsj282 (GMT+1)
5. Choxorn
6. CommandoBob <-- Just Played

 

[MrRandomGuy]

From what I remember everyone's first turn was supposed to be 20 turns then 10 turns after that.

I just realized I totally forgot to state my time zone. I am 6 hours behind GMT time (give or take an hour with daylight savings time not being the same time as the U.S.)

 

[Lanzelot]

Seems like an interesting idea. One change I'd like to make: Instead of settling in 10A, why not 1NE of 10A, to be on the river?

Would be a good idea, if we have enough food for that. 1NE we would have like 6 mountains and 4 hills in its BFC, and I don't know off the top of my head, which of the other tiles (the food tiles) are needed by surrounding cities. Would need to be calculated carefully.

Based on my "gut feeling" I just automatically opted for the gold hill, without even thinking about settling on the grassland, because we gain 2 food that way.

@CommandoBob: yes, I think the deal was, everyone gets 20 turns on his first set. So if you want to, go ahead and play another 10...