Always Peace

[Spoonwood]

*Signs the charter as is*. The rest comes as mere commentary.

"5. If a civilization will offer us peace and something else, we are to accept peace only."

Hmmmm... I don't think that necessary, but alright... I guess I'll go along with that one.

"7. We may enter into military alliances. However, the existence of an alliance does not relieve us of our obligations under rule #4 above."

With this and 4 I know I certainly won't sign any military alliances, and I won't recommed it to anyone else, since we'll almost surely have to sign a peace treaty before the military alliance runs out. This would cause a trading reputation hit. Not good.

"8. We may definitely use spies. That's not declaring war. Use of spies shall be subject to the spirit of rule #3 above."

Alright... I think we should add no more than one attempt at trying to plant a spy per turn, as anything more might cause the AI to declare war on us. I don't really know or use the spying game myself. We can do this... though of course judiciously since any caught spies imply that the targeted AI's attitude becomes worse to us. That doesn't seem desireable for a diplomatic victory or for keeping the peace... but we can take risks I suppose.

"9. Privateers are acceptable, as they do not require a declaration of war."

Sure. But using those pirates will, like spies, imply that the targeted AI's attitude becomes worse to us... Hmm... 8 and 9 seem to imply we preferably decide on diplomatic or spaceship before or around Physics I'd think.

Darski,

"You could build defensive units only. Aside from Artillery type units of course."

This would, in my opinion, actually make things harder on us. Spearmen take longer to train than warriors, AND the AI generally rates offensive units higher than defensive units. I'd rather not add that sort of complication also, since if we get attacked some swords to clear out say immortals or ancient cavalry within our cultural borders would be nice, since if we lose a town... we've lost it for good (see rule 2). Thanks for the suggestion though, and we welcome you to play some turns if you like.

 

[Spoonwood]

1 makes me want to puke.
2 looks like an elf's paradise.
3 seems decent.
4 makes me get high.
5 even though perhaps a bit too far south for all that much territory, seems rich, fertile, and productive. A second river nearby, a luxury within sight, some decent wheat... maybe even a 4-turn settler farm if we have another food bonus nearby... if not... we've got a 6-turner and we've decided on Emperor, so we should do O.K., if not great. I think we'll want to scout north and settle that direction initially, and then back-settle the southern tip later. If it doesn't come across clearly enough already... start # 5 wins hands down. Does 20 turns per player sound good? I'll suggest Darski to go first, as that should get her off her lurker's chair. If we can't persuade her, I can go first or you can if you really want to DWetzel.

oh... and we have all the default rules enabled, right? I mean, all victory conditions except the wonder condition, no mass regicide (king units almost make TOO good of scouts in my opinion), capture the princess or anything like that, we have cultural flips enabled, and what about the culturally linked start? I usually play with that off, but I don't care for this game.

And DWetzel, could you kindly explain to me on how to post a screenshot. The thread that has information on this seems outdated and useless.

 

[Spoonwood]

Placeholder.

 

[DWetzel]

1 makes me want to puke.
2 looks like an elf's paradise.
3 seems decent.
4 makes me get high.
5 even though perhaps a bit too far south for all that much territory, seems rich, fertile, and productive. A second river nearby, a luxury within sight, some decent wheat... maybe even a 4-turn settler farm if we have another food bonus nearby... if not... we've got a 6-turner and we've decided on Emperor, so we should do O.K., if not great. I think we'll want to scout north and settle that direction initially, and then back-settle the southern tip later. If it doesn't come across clearly enough already... start # 5 wins hands down. Does 20 turns per player sound good? I'll suggest Darski to go first, as that should get her off her lurker's chair. If we can't persuade her, I can go first or you can if you really want to DWetzel.

oh... and we have all the default rules enabled, right? I mean, all victory conditions except the wonder condition, no mass regicide (king units almost make TOO good of scouts in my opinion), capture the princess or anything like that, we have cultural flips enabled, and what about the culturally linked start? I usually play with that off, but I don't care for this game.

And DWetzel, could you kindly explain to me on how to post a screenshot. The thread that has information on this seems outdated and useless.

I'll get some decent screenies up later this morning (around lunch); I took them normal size then shrank them a bit. Apparently that didn't work too well).

I think I agree that start 5 is best for us; a luxury (maybe more gems nearby, for tradin'?), a food bonus, some hills for later game shield production, and some nice river type stuff. I was actually fond of start #1 for some reason (don't know if you could see well, but that was two game forests), but I can understand the desire for food > shields in our early game. #2 had the furs (good) and lots of choppables if we wanted that, plus the coast.

Everything is "normal" as far as rules go (all victory conditions except Wonder are on, no culturally linked starting positions, nothing funky like capture the flag).

Don't care who goes first. You, darski, me, whoever. Just let me know. I'd suggest 20 to start, then 10 thereafter (though if things are going slowly, i.e. no contacts, another 20 might be appropriate).

Agree completely on the growth end of things. Fire north ASAP, and then spread out later. One thing I like about the polar start is that we know that nobody will be coming from that direction, and with barbs off, we can really not worry about defense there at all for basically the entire game.

Amusing thought you can feel free to say no to: do we want to try a cultural 100k (actually, cultural 160k for this map) game?

Re: wonders (specifically GLib), I'd say that other than ensuring a golden age somehow, we can play those by ear. If we are slow to contact others, or find ourselves in a deep hole around Philosophy, we can go that route. If trading is going well (priority: coastal city), we can probably get away with it.

My hope is that we can meet plenty of people, and have them far far away from us.

 

[darski]

lurker's comment: Oops sorry... I am just a mouthy lurker with old eyes. I am not a player

 

[Spoonwood]

Actually, I missed the games before. Now I don't want to puke anymore. It actually becomes sort of appealing, as two game theoretically can imply a 4 turn settler factory for the French, but not in this case since we can't irrigate the tundra. Also, even if we had grassland underlay instead of tundra, I don't see any bonus grasslands, so getting enough production would pose a problem.

I've never done a 100k game. That sort of game just seems like it would take quite a while, in terms of real time, to me... although maybe I've got that all wrong. I know smallpox (ICS) works as the best city strategy for that. If we do go for a 100k, I'd suggest we'd basically beeline for literature (other than possibly pottery... we'd trade for ceremonial burial and that's it), turn off research after learning literature, stock up on gold and buy lots of temples and libraries once we got into the republic. We'd then probably want to probably reserach slowly after education, if at all, from then on out. I think such a mass cultural game would work out easier on a standard sized map with 7 opponents, since I think we'll have about the same territory as we would on a standard-sized map... maybe a lot more... just with less corruption and longer research times... and we need significantly more cultural than a standard sized map. Maybe I lack taste which I would benefit from acquiring, but the mass-culture game just feels sort of ugly and drab to me. Have you done any of these DWetzel?

20 turns and then 10 turns. How do I do that thing to hide the turn-log as a "spoiler"? Post the save and I'll play. I'll move the worker to the wheat, and unless I spot some better territory immediately, I'll settle Paris on that corner. Oh... and I usually don't mess with the governors at any point in the game (of course I change tile selection though)... meaning the "emphasize production" box says "yes" and everything else says "no". I also play with all animations off, except battle animations. I'll make sure to send you saves at the end of the turn where you'll have to click enter or spacebar to start your first turn and try not to use goto orders.

 

[DWetzel]

Okay, sounds good. Thanks for not making me post new pictures.

Save is attached. Have at it!

I think I was semi-kidding about the 100k game. But I assume we will want a good amount of culture to hopefully flip some border cities our way as we go (and to assimilate land for safety's sake as well). I assume the 100k game would be a lot of "cram in another city, rush library, rush temple, etcetera". I can do without.

I also will try not to use goto orders.

For the spoiler tag, assuming you are in the "Go Advanced" method of posting, there is a button at the far right of the second row that says "Spoil" in a little talking bubble box. Just highlight whatever you want to appear in the spoiler box, and click that.

Have you figured out screen shots yet? If not, it's also in the Go Advanced thing. I assume you know how to Ctrl + Print Screen and paste into Paint to get a screen capture. From there, save the file, then when you are making a post, click on the paper clip icon to upload a file. (This also works for the save game files.) That should make the pictures appear as thumbnails at the bottom of the post.


As for game strategery, I think worker to wheat and settle unless absolutely begging to move elsewhere is good. I think getting the settler factory going ASAP is key. I'd like to get SOME exploration going; suggest a warrior to head west by those rivers, find the coast, then beeline north. Second one (once free of MP duty) could head east then north.

Actually, now that I look, worker to BG across the river might work well too. Similar exploration, we can road/mine that for some shields early (for warriors), and then irrigate the wheat. Early on getting the food won't be much of a problem; getting the shields for the granary (as we have no forests to chop) will be as critical. But I leave it up to you.

 

[darski]

How do I do that thing to hide the turn-log as a "spoiler"? .

It is the word spoil at the top of your window

 

[Spoonwood]

I'll have to work on posting a screenshot. Whenever I hit the ctrl button in game it gives more concentric circles which collapses inward over the spot of the mouse cursor. I can control+P for a print screen here, but I don't see anything about pasting into Paint. O.K.... maybe that makes the first 20 turns believable... but does this spoiler??? Don't worry... not all my turn logs will come as long as the first.

Spoiler :

1-4000 I decided to move the worker NE to the bonus grassland, going with your suggestion that we'll want more production early on. A roaded wheat might have a saved our warrior scout a movement turn, but since we'd want several warriors, it seemed better to develop the grassland first. I moved the warrior and spotted...

and spotted...

and spotted...

and spotted...

drumroll...

another drumroll...

A COW! Once I settled down from my elation I notice we have two MORE bonus grasslands. I set up a mini-plan for the worker of mining then roading the bonus grassland, then mining and then roading the cow, then mining and roading the northern bonus grassland, and then irrigating the wheat and then roading it. I ended up doing something slightly different.

I settle Paris in place, I switch city production to the bonus grassland and then things get even more interesting. After I've counted them I notice... 3 more bonus grasslands! With the 2 BG in sight already from the start, 2 from the worker, 3 from the founding of Paris, that's seven bonus grasslands. We have a mountain with a luxury and two hills. One idea screams at me... 20k OCC. Seriously, if I had programmed an ideal OCC 20k start I would have *only* changed the wheat to a cow (one shield), and put the city on a coastal edge (not likely on a pangea start). After mining, we would have 14 shields from the bonus grasslands, 2 from the cow, 1 from the wheat, 4 from the hills, and 2 from the mountain in Despotism for a total of 23 shields per turn. In The Republic, Paris would have 26 shields. And with the Industrious French? Simply unreal.

Alright, once I came back down to Earth, I realized I didn't want to play this as a 20k game... I just *allowed* that as a possibility if my teammates really wanted to play it that way. I still want to shoot for the stars or have all the other emperors vote for Joanie or that 160k victory condition. So, I did the only sane thing. I saved the start for some other day/game in the future. A 20k attempt on a huge emperor map might actually end up pretty scary tech-wise... and sure enough I've think I've played in such a way that we won't think about 20k again, at least not an ideal one.

I then went and checked the tech tree. I saw we could get pottery at the maximum rate in 25 turns initially (I knew this would drop when Paris grew)... but then I noticed something interesting about the French before I hadn't noticed before. The French have a rather unique start technologically. When you think about it, the Carthaginians also have it. Masonry+Alphabet implies that the French can research Mathematics right away. So, I click on Mathematics and notice we'll get it in 50 turns either way. I figured since we would engineer our way to paradise as builders, we may as well get that tech ASAP No, seriously I didn't think of that idea until later.

I thought, and still think, that we can contact someone early enough and trade for pottery... and really a bunch of other first level techs with masonry and alphabet... and then we could use mathematics to trade for even more tech. We will have 15 other tribes after all. I wouldn't have gambited like this (if this qualifies as a gambit... I don't know the ancient tech tree that well) on Demigod... I would've picked writing... but on Emperor I thought it might just work. We might even get mathematics first, who knows?.

I initially thought we might want to research writing next... although thinking more about this now, I think we could also research currency and get ourselves near or into the middle ages rather fast with writing and/or currency... This probably won't net us Monarchy though... and we might still want Literature to try and "wonder block" the AIs from the Great Library to slow their tech rate down. I also just thought that if we got ivory, Mathematics might give us an early jump on the Statue of Zeus... but I haven't spotted ivory so far. We'll see how reseraching mathematics first turns out, I suppose.

So, I set the science slider back to 20%, used the bonus grassland, and started training a warrior.

2-3950

The worker digs a hole. He tells me it's called a "mine". I tell him to dig faster.

3-3900 zzz

4-3850 zzz

5-3800

dreaming of cows with gems

6-3750

The warrior completes his training (or is 'he' a 'she'?) and goes northeast. The worker finishes that hole he calls a "mine", and I tell him to pave a pathway. He says "Oh, you mean a road?" I tell him to get back to work. He obeys.

Playing more carefully than usual I see something here... We can get Paris to grow in 4 turns and produce the warrior at the same time. Then I realize that quite won't work. But, actually it will once I figure it out two turns later.

7-3700

The warrior spots a mountain and a river off of it.

8-3650

The worker completes what he calls a "road". I move him to the cow. He gazes at them for a moment... I say "you have more interesting things to do... so get to it". I switch Paris to the wheat. It'll use the wheat for two turns, and then since we have "emphasize production" as the default setting in most civ III games, even though the screen reads 3 turns for the warrior, we'll get it on the same turn as Paris grows to size 2.

9-3600

The worker mines... er... milks the cow. Our exploratory warrior moves onto the mountain sees some tundra and a LOT of forrest.

10-3550

The warrior completes as we grow, as predicted. I set sci back to 10%, lux up to 10%. Warrior two moves northwest (I think) and spots a gold mine mountain to the northwest. Paris uses the wheat and the mined grassland. Interturn Paris expands culturally, and we consequently see a river (I think we saw it in the start) to the West and a wheat! One 4-turn settler factory, another 6-turn settler factory at least.

11-3500

Paris uses the the cow and the mined grassland.

12-3450

2nd warrior spots incence in the hlls. I think we'll now get warrior # 3 using the cow and the wheat as fast as using the cow and the grassland, so we use the wheat for faster growth. Sure enough we get the warrior as I thought we would

13-3400

Now we'll use the wheat for 1 turn, and then use the bonus grassland for two turns and grow and get warrior 4 at the same time. The worker says to me "I shall build a pathway to these beautiful cows." I tell him to "quit looking at them... they just eat grass and get fat... and start constructing that "road" thing.

14-3350

Warriors keep scouting.

15-3300

The worker completes his task and hesitates (O.K... not really)... admiring the beauty of the cows. I tell him to move to the wheat and he'd better run fast. He says "Wheat... what's that?" I respond "move quickly and you'll find out... Otherwise, you'll get replaced." He hauls ass, jumping across the river in a single bound. A warrior spots a cow.

16-3250

Warrior 4 completes, I have him move onto the mountain luxury square. Paris at size 3 now, lux up to 20%. Paris starts warrior 5 (due in 2 turns... 5 shields already). I tell the worker to start irrigating the wheat. He goes "huh?" I tell him to drag the water from the river to the wheat. He obeys without hesitation this time. Note... in retrospect I could have roaded early and then irrigated as we have an industrious civilization... so I guess we could have stashed up 3 more gold... oh well... C'est la vie as the French say

17-3200

A warrior moves onto a hill.

18-3150

Warrior 5 completes. I tell him to go north. He asks me "but what's down south?" I tell him he'll freeze down there and probably starve too. He says "huh?" I tell him to move north or I'll replace him with my now obedient worker. He starts moving. I hesitate a bit deciding as to whether build a 6th warrior or a settler (we do have a maintainence cost of 2 gold for all the warriors, but we've still got a nice cash flow from the rivers, roads, and the high tax rate). I put Paris on a settler build or pre-build or pre-pre-build. We can either produce a settler now and settle that 6-turn wheat spot in the West soon (NW of the mountain and SE of the wheat seems like the optimal spot... no overlap with Paris, city along the river), or we can pre-build a granary with the settler, or we can use the settler as a pre-build to the Pyramids, which will act as a pre-build to the granary... thus the settler would become a pre-pre-build.

I prefer building a settler now... settling near that way, getting that city going and starting on our granaries. Maybe another worker even for the second city (do the French call it Lyons?) if we can time growth and the worker's completion to happen simultaeously. We could lose shields if we pre-built our granary with the Pyramids. And if you switch to a temple, I'll go atheist on you .

19-3100

I tell the worker to give us a pathway to our watered wheat. He actually rejoices in this duty.

20-3050

A warrior spots freshwater and game. I think that's two cows, two wheats, and two game spotted so far. I change from the wheat to the undeveloped bonus grassland. Another warrior spots blue borders. I hope we have the Americans, or better the Maya so we can trade for pottery. Although, maybe we've got Mao and we'll have to cope with riders... I certainly don't want that. Whatever they call themselves, I say we trade for whatever techs they have ASAP, even if something relatively useless like warrior code (oh... we need that for Monarchy... still... pretty useless since we probably won't need many... if any archers). We can hopefully shop around that tech for other tech with someone else soon enough. Again, NW of the mountain and SE of the wheat in the West seems like the best spot for city number two. It's close AND has good food.


Also, believe it or not in my games which have played similar to this (including ones on Demigod), except I usually have a war to trigger a Golden Age, I've foregone training defensive units until the Middle Ages. The AI rates offensive units higher than defensive ones. In practical terms, since I've usually beelined for literature or come close to such a beeline after maybe researching pottery or ceremonial burial on emperor games, this means I've trained basically only warriors as military units for a while. No doubt, this has implied that I've gotten more infrastructure more quickly.

Believe it or not, I had a Pangea Emperor game on a standard map with the Maya where I had one or two warriors in every city with like one spearman in one city, until I upgraded them to guerrilas as I had no iron until I got close to replaceable parts. I didn't get attacked... lots of Rights of Passage. I say that as a comment and no more. I can see some advantages to having some spearpeople around... and after all we have a succession game going. I certainly don't want to play this one for you, and want you or anyone else who joins to play their own turns, so do what you think best. One thing I will add though... once we've settled into place, so to speak (the timing of this seems difficult to determine), we almost surely should put sometime of military unit in every city. In my experience... and from what I saw of a warmonger's game... leaving a city without any military after the expnsion phase seems like a big red flag to the AIs... "come here... take this city... you'll capture it EASILY."

And of course... the save

 

[DWetzel]

Look for the "Print Scrn" button on your keyboard; should be up somewhere over your number keypad. Hit Ctrl + that button. That basically makes a copy of the current screen image.

Then, open Paint, hit Ctrl + V (or "Paste") and, voila. You have the image in the file format of your choice (.jpg works nicely for these boards).



Oh, and Got It. I'll play over lunch (I may go 15) and let you know where we're at.

Good news on the cow and the surroundings. Incense is a good thing--a 2nd lux should make things go well.

We definitely have enough warriors; I plan to pull one (maybe two) back for MP duty I think, to lower the lux slider and save on cash. We'll need cash for deficit spending. Frankly I don't care WHAT government we get to quickly as long as it gets us out of despotism. We're far enough away from that that we don't have to decide.

Favor getting a second settler farm going (or worker farm?) ASAP, so I'll figure out a good spot for that and settle there.

 

[darski]

You don't need the Ctrl button to make prtscn work.

Your picture will be on your clipboard and available in Paint (or Pain.net if you prefer it)

 

[DWetzel]

Played. Save attached. Interesting stuff.

3050 BC Preflight:

Fire up CAII, Paint and Notepad.

Tech: Math it is, no sense in changing it now. This way I can blame you if there is a problem!

Build: Settler in 4 is OK, but if we can get the granary I will do that. I want my 4-turner now. A second city will do us less good than cranking up the 4-turner ASAP.

Explorers: Continue. Will pull back nearest warrior for MP duty so that we can keep gaining cash.

Goals: Meet blue neighbor. Get Pottery. Explore some more. Get 4-turner cranked up.

Spoiler :

3000 BC (1): Lux to 30% as Paris grows. Settler still in 3. Bringing nearest warrior home.

Moving warriors meets our neighbor.

Spoiler :

No, not them! NW warrior spots a light green Persian warrior/settler combo. Before meeting them, move other warrior in east to mountain. Light blue is Sumeria. Sumeria has BW + Pottery , minus Masonry and Alpha, and their 10g. Persia has BW, minus Alpha, and their 10g.

Trade Sumeria Alpha for BW + Pots + 10g. Maybe should have peeked to see what Masonry got, and kept the Alpha monopoly, but I'm hoping for some parlays later. As long as we're gambling with Math, I figured what the hell.

We are up Pottery and Alpha on Persia, and Masonry on Sumeria. Now, to keep them from meeting each other...

Decide to swap Paris to granary now; MM off the wheat (we need SHIELDS); granary and growth both in 7.

Worker across river to mine/road BG.

2950 BC (2): Move some things. Persia settles Pasargarde 7 squares from Paris, on a hill. Priority #1 is to grab our nearby wheat, then beeline settlers north ASAP.

2900 (3): Warrior home = 20% Lux.

2850 (4): Western warrior spots coast. Roughly 3 cities away for us. Will be tough to expand that way AND north; I think north is more important.

2800 (5): zzz

2750 (6): Worker starts road. Paris in 2, Granary in 1. Nice.

2710 (7): Paris granary > settler. As long as we work the wheat and cow all the time, Paris is set as a 4-turner.

2670 (8): Lux to 30% as Paris grows.

2630 (9): zzzz. IBT: I apologize to Persia about that warrior. As long as I'm here, this is a good trade check. Both Sumeria and Persia have WC. Trade Persia Pottery for WC + 10g. We are still up Masonry on Sumeria and Alpha on Persia.

2590 (10): I spot Perseopolis. I expect to be booted. But I wanted to try before walking around. Paris is size 6 but lux at 30% is okay. Settler in 1.

Empire check:

Math in 21 (10% sci), 135g, +5 gpt.
5 warriors (4 exploring, one MP), 1 worker.
Paris (6): Settler in 1, growth in 2. Just keep Paris cranking out settlers for eternity, IMO.

Suggestions: warrior in Persia should get booted; I might bring him home to MP our second city/stand guard so Persia doesn't get any ideas. Other warriors I probably sent too far east for the most part; I think I'd take them and generally rotate their exploration paths counterclockwise to cover the land north of Persia.

Attached is a dotmap of where I would plant some cities, though I will leave order out for now. This is semi-loose (roughly CxxxC), I can be persuaded to go either way. I think the nearby wheat is a big priority (worker pump!!!!); incense is also a huge priority. Having three incense there means some nice trading opportunities (read: bribes to keep AI off our back). Other than that, NW along the river and N to the mini-lakes would seem to be main directions for expansion, and the lakes are probably a realistic border for us in that direction.

Note that we do not have CB yet (nor do our neighbors), so planning culture pops to fill in space is problematic. Hopefully Persia will work on that (though my money is on Iron Working) and Sumeria will do writing, and when we get math we can make some more hay. Having two scientific neighbors could prove to be beneficial IF we can keep the trading game up for a long time.

The dotmap:

Spoiler :

 

[Spoonwood]

Wow... Persia seems really close already. C'est la vie I suppose. I don't like either of the hill spots. We have a lot of grasslands around and if we founded our cities on the grassland, long-term we'll have a lot more production. I don't know if we needed the warrior in Paris as an MP yet, but we'll have more commerce that way. I'll keep the other 4 warriors exploring... probably for quite sometime. Since we have two scientific neighbors the Great Library might give us a quick tech or two in the middle ages if we decided to gift them into the Middle Ages... I don't know about that though... just a thought.

I feel glad that the "trade for pottery" gambit worked. I probably should have consulted you on the mathematics gambit, and I apologize for that. Still, now that I've looked at DaveMcW's list of favorite techs of the AI by era, I see mathematics comes in 14th overall below bronze working, warrior code, pottery, ceremonial burial, the wheel, masonry, map making, mysticism, irown working, horseback riding, alphabet, and philosophy. So, from the looks of things so far it seems we'll almost surely get there before our scientific neigbors (they don't even have the prequisites yet from your report), and perhaps first overall... dare I suggest we'll get a scientific leader? We shall see. I doubt Sumeria has started in on Writing yet, though I don't know how much the scientific trait affects this. The AI tends to research quit a bit of other tech first in my experience. Maybe we can get there first too (more of a longshot since we want to grab the AIs techs... but who knows?). On DaveMcW's list Currency comes in at 20th... second to last to The Republic.

Speaking of Republic I've assumed that we'd turn into one sometime exiting the ancient era. We might not want to do this as soon as we can though, since we'll lose 4-8 turns in Anarachy where no more settlers come out... and we'll only get more cities after the ReX phase through warscavenging or back-filling land.

Speaking of settling, I'd prefer the lower hill spot one square south or southwest. It'll have another hill for later on and can immediately use a bonus grassland. The upper hill spot I'd like one turn southeast. This will give it a bunch of hills and forests, and lay 4 turns northwest of Paris. Settler one will go to the wheat spot. Settler 2 I'll move 4 turns northwest to the upper hill spot, and I'd think settler 3 to the lower hill spot. Other than that we might want to move the two Eastern spots a square East... although they look good enough I could go either way. I'd prefer to use town 2 as a second, 6-turn, settler factory for a while, with town 3 as a warrior factory for a while, and then have other towns produce workers as they go for a while... Although maybe it works out best to have town 2 produce a few workers and then settlers... or the other way around... for it to produce a few settlers and then produce workers. Either way, I think I'll have it build a granary first and have our worker road over there and develop it fairly quickly. Joan XX has ensured me that until Joan XXXIX at least her Paris will produce settlers.

I use MapStat, so I can constantly check which techs I can trade and buy every turn that I play. You probably know this, but... filling in space only (at least appears) matters for the possible squares used by the town. I've never seen an AI plop down between two cxxxxc towns before a temple or library got built. In the AfterMath, we could almost surely easily nab Currency before anyone else, even at 50 turns again. Although, I think I'd prefer Writing since if we get to that soon enough we might get to philosophy first and take code of laws or literature as our free tech. If not, we stil have a path to literature (decent for trading even if we don't want the Great Library, I think), and we can still get Currency perhaps before anyone else still. But... I've gotten WAY ahead of myself. We want Monarchy as a tech (NOT as a government)... so we'll have to adapt our research to time that well also, I think. And if we get an SGL, I'd think we'd want to use it for the Hanging Gardens.

If the mathematics gambit fails horribly somehow, we can probably build the Great Library, and I wouldn't mind going back and restarting if we really wanted to.

 

[Spoonwood]

For some reason I thought we had a pangea map... Oh well. Since I play so much pangea... all the more interesting for me. I think we have a rather large continent, but I don't know much about huge continent maps... Anyways...

Spoiler :

Pre-1st turn... I check Paris. I see the worker mining and see our shield output. We don't need the mine yet where the worker currently mines. At least, I don't see a reason as it won't help Paris crank out settlers faster. I right-click the worker and the "change order" option says the worker will complete the mine in three turns, so you must have just started mining. I wake the worker, and sure enough before the turn ends I've started him roading. After this, he'll road his way over to city # 2 (I picked the wrong road path). I also had a worker inefficency before, so don't think I criticize here... I just saw what I thought of as a better play. I check in with Sumeria and Persia, and they still lack Alphabet and Masonry as before.

1-2550

Paris completes a settler and starts on another one. No words from Xerxes. The settler moves onto the mountain. Using MapStat I see Persia has 2 workers. I could have sold them alphabet for both, but instead I buy one for 116 lump sum to leave them out of the writing race. I move the slave onto the mountain. The lux. slider goes back down to 20%. A warrior spots more sugar. I send the Eastern warrior on a quest East of Sumeria. I don't know why you brought him east... I'd think getting more contacts or knowing that we can't get more contacts in a direction comes as more important than clearing all the black near us... but maybe that's just what one picks up when one plays pangea for a while... I don't know.

Interturn Xerxes demands we leave. We comply.

2-2510

The slave roads the mountain gems... 18 turns to complete. Our worker moves SW. Yes... Xerxes kicked us out to the North of his borders saving us a movement turn! Go Xerxes! I spot borders and think... Hittites? I meet an English warrior. They have Ceremonial Burial. We only have Warrior Code on them, and they don't want to trade CB for warrior code and 28 gold even. Oh well.

3-2470

We meet the Inca (not the Hittites). We have Warrior Code on them. Engalnd learned Warrior Code interturn (hence they didn't want to trade for it, I guess). I think that if we get Mathematics first and then trade it to the English, they might soon enough research Currency for us early on. In my games they usually seem like the first to reserach Currency easily. I think it has something to do with their trait combo... I don't see a civ that tends more towards economic traits than the English... although perhaps the French come in 2nd here.

4-2430

Lux. slider up to 30%. We found Orleans. It starts on a granary (see turn 10). Profit up to 10 gold/turn.

5-2390

Interturn we apologize to the Earth Shaker for "tresspassing" on his unused jungle. The settler completes. Lux. back down to 20%. The Settler goes NW. The current settler I move to the Wester river spot below the hill (with only two hills there I'd think we'd want both... especially since we have a core city here). Then we'll grab the incense.

6-2310 zzzz...

7-2270

Interturn Sumeria tells us we've trespassed, and we apologize. Lux. up to 30% (Paris at size 6), worker SE. We spot an exploratory Persian spearman.

8-2230

The Inca and Sumeria make up the tech deficit they had on us. Persia still lacks Alphabet. Lux. down to 20% as the settler completes. The worker roads. Setter west, NW, then NW onto the forrest along out new road path.

9-2190

Interturn Sumeria starts The Pyramids. We found Lyons, SW of the lower hill spot you suggested. With only two hills around there, I'd think we'd want them both for maximum production... even if we go for space. Lyons starts warrior training. Lyons's founding also now enables Orleans to work an extra square. Orleans changes production from the wheat to the bonus grassland now available as it will grow in 1 turn either way. We spot gems near Persia.

10-2150

Orleans grows to size 2. I notice the Inca will have Dyes eventually. England now has The Wheel... it took them what... 7 turns? But it's a relatively inexpensive tech to start with. whew... they didn't research Maths! Maths now due in 10 turns... I feel more confident in asserting now that we'll get it first. Please note: I currently have Orleans going for a settler in 11 turns (I switched it from a granary right before the turn's end). The granary would take 26 turns, and it'll take a bit before we can get its production up with mines. That seems like too long to wait. Orleans COULD produce a worker in 1 turn without any shield waste. I think I'd go with a settler to grab as much territory as fast as possible, but of course, this gets left up to you. You'll need to readjust the luxury slider up to 30% in a turn when Paris grows to size 6.

If you don't like the current spot for the active settler (he just got there), you can move him onto the incense hill. I now realize that settling on the hill will give us more food long-term (right?), although during the size 12 period this will imply less productivity as we'll have fewer surrounding hills. Which works out better? For a diplomatic victory, I'd think settling in place on the grassland. For a spacship victory, I'd think settling on the hill as more food implies more research evetually. With our scientific neighbors, I'd think we may as well shoot for the stars.

Also, I think we can still sell Persia the Alphabet and get our gold back we used to purchase the slave. I don't know what to do here. I look forward to learning about this new language they call "mathematics".

And the save:

 

[darski]

One quick word about the prtscn function - you can only store one picture at a time and it must be pasted immediately into paint before you can take another one. There are programs out there that will allow you to take multiple pics during a game and work with them later.

(I m trying to figure out your thumbnail pic - it looks like you took a reg pic and a zoomed out pic.

 

[DWetzel]

Back to you. Not the most exciting turn set, but 10 turns was an excellent stopping point.

Preflight: CA2, Notepad.

Assessment of situation:

Paris settler factory, check.
Orleans, swap to worker. This will help us get Orleans up and running sooner and get us some useful roading. This will help for the late REX when we're sending Parisians to far-flung corners of the continent.
Lyons, warrior, check. Will probably go warrior-worker-warriors for a while.
Settler: I will settle on the center incense hill. First, that immediately gets them all in our borders with no issues. Second, with no food bonii around, I don't see us using three hills effectively until the later game. This will be an okay warrior/archer producer for us for right now.

Tech: Yay, math. Check with England: they'd sell CB for 107g+ 11 gpt. Ha. Persia will pay all for Alpha, which I won't do now but may soon since everyone else has it. I would have probably taken the Alpha for 2 slaves deal, but I can live without.

Exploration: I see Persia nabbed the west coast. That could be problematic for us in getting waterborne.

Spoiler :

Hit enter.

2110 (1): Orleans worker-worker. Worker to wheat. Move some people. Lux to 30%. IBT: Incas boot us north (thanks!)

2070 (2): Paris settler-settler. Lux to 20%. Send settler north through Lyons to try to grab me some more river. Found Rheims on incense hill. Citizens are, like, way happy dude. Start warrior.

2030 (3): zzz

1990 (4): Lyons warrior-worker. Warrior peeks head north, spots mountain where my dot was, and green borders. Poo. Settler will still head north to try to flank Persia. MM Orleans to BG to get next worker faster. Sumeria has CB, Persia has Wheel. I think Alpha for Wheel + 116g is probably fine but I will hold off.

1950 (5): Lux to 30%.

1910 (6): Paris spams settler, lux to 20%.

IBT: Inca start Pyramids.

1870 (7): Rheims warrior-warrior.

1830 (8): Orleans worker-granary; Persia starts Pyramids.

1790 (9): Lyons worker-warrior. Found Tours (warrior). Found Marseilles (warrior). Paris, size 6, is now OK at 20% lux for some reason. Oh--our slave is done with the gem road. Move slave south of Orleans to start roading/mining there. I think a settler needs to go that way soon, mainly to bring the other BGs into Orleans' working radius.

1750 (10): Math in. Paris settler. See notes below.

I moved exploring warriors, but there are three decisions to be made that I will pass the buck on:

1. Where to move the current settler. My two main options are on one of the southern hills (probably CxxxC from Orleans on the southwesternmost hill visible), to get Orleans working better, or to the northwest to settle between the lakes near the game. I'm actually leaning toward the game area at the moment--Sumeria is expanding that way and that seems like a useful (and fairly defensible, if that matters) border point. Orleans we do need to figure out soon but the territory grab seems more useful.

2. Workers--They're a bit out of sync right now, but I think priorities are to build a road to the north and hook in Rheims to the network, and to mine around Orleans and (especially) Lyons. Two workers = 1 road in 1 turn. Should road N of Lyons, then 2N of Lyons, then through the forest to Rheims, then back 3N of Lyons (1SE of Tours). Others should mine the heck out of Lyons and probably start a second highway to the lakes.

3. Tech. I have it set to Currency at minimum but I am almost certain that is not best. Our min research times for available techs (at 80%, but see notes) are:

Iron Working 16 turns
Currency 43 turns
Writing 22 turns
Wheel 10 turns
Ceremonial Burial 5 turns.

I think we can safely rule out CB + Wheel, as we can trade for those whenever we want. Iron Working is fairly high on the AI list, and I expect we should be getting a shot at trading for that in your turnset. Which leaves Writing or Currency. Problem is if we research Currency now that pretty much eliminates any chance of Philo slingshot, or much else if everyone is slow about Writing. I think getting Writing faster is fairly important. It opens up the chance of Philo, or Lit, depending on what we prefer to go for. If it was a solo game I'd be all over writing right now. Disseminating Writing may not be a terrible thing.

Note that our times for these will come down, because we can actually run 10% lux when Paris is size 4 (as long as we road to new towns or MP them), and once Rheims is hooked up we can almost eliminate lux entirely.

CB can be bought for about 130g wholesale if we ever feel the need to do that.

I would hang on to Math until we get a very very good deal for it (like CB+Wheel+ IW from England or something).

We may also want to pull the trigger on a sale of Alphabet to Persia. They are the only ones with >0 gold, and if we get it back that might be handy.


Two side notes: be careful with Marseilles so that it doesn't suck up too much of Paris's worked tiles for the settler factory. I put Marseilles there to get it some useful tiles right away, and I don't think that will impact Paris, but watch it.

Also, watch lux. It's at 10% for this turn but will need to adjust as Paris grows. I think it will need 20% at size 5 but if we can get away with 10% that would be awesome.

 

[DWetzel]

One quick word about the prtscn function - you can only store one picture at a time and it must be pasted immediately into paint before you can take another one. There are programs out there that will allow you to take multiple pics during a game and work with them later.

(I m trying to figure out your thumbnail pic - it looks like you took a reg pic and a zoomed out pic.

Actually, basically, yes. I took a printscreen at the start of the turnset and did a prelim dotmap just to sort of focus on things. And pasted into Paint. Then, apparently, when I did the other one, there were some overlap issues.

 

[Spoonwood]

"Check with England: they'd sell CB for 107g+ 11 gpt."

I've stopped reading here for a second... 11 gpt and their in despotism and they have what 3 or 4 cities?!?!?!?!? You've got to kid me! If you do mean gold per turn and you didn't make a typo, we should save this and send it to Lord Emsworth. I did make some gpt off the Maya before Monarchy or Despotism... but with the richer Deity rulers and I think I sold them something like currency, so they had a full spat of cities already (they started with an extra settler, extra workers, extra units, a much faster build rate, etc.) I'll find what he recently said... "As a rule of thumb, as long as an AI is still in Despotism just don't hold your breath for any gpt at all - not even on Deity. As soon as they become Republics, or later even Democracies, then gpt deals become a possibility. That doesn't mean however that they have gpt by definition. You just need to check often, to "catch them" when they have some available." here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=278159 Oh wait... he *only* plays Vanilla. He doesn't know about the economic superpower called the English in conquests (seriously they are money... think about it.... commercial+seafaring).

"I would have probably taken the Alpha for 2 slaves deal, but I can live without."

I hesitated and thought about this seriously... but since you had liked our half-monopolies on Sumeria and Persia and the Writing lead on them... I thought I'd not do so. Two slaves might have come as the better choice.

Concerning Lyons... I know I settled this in a different place than you suggested and I did this mainly so that we could use the hill (two extra shields later on). But, if I remember correctly, something else occured to me that we'll make a lot of sense, and I think we want to put a big fat circle (in our heads at least) around Lyons. I'll check the old save and scope the terrain and post my ideas before I play with the newer saves, either as an edit or as another post.

"I think we can safely rule out CB + Wheel, as we can trade for those whenever we want." Maybe... but the AIs might start in on mathematics. So, I'll trade for them now. We probably could wait a few turns more, but you've already waited a few, so no need to risk it further.

"Problem is if we research Currency now that pretty much eliminates any chance of Philo slingshot, or much else if everyone is slow about Writing. I think getting Writing faster is fairly important. It opens up the chance of Philo, or Lit, depending on what we prefer to go for. If it was a solo game I'd be all over writing right now. Disseminating Writing may not be a terrible thing."

I agree about Writing... except that we might not want to disseminate it immediately to help ensure a philosophy slingshot of some sort (maybe that's not necessary on Emperor... especially Emperor Huge). Also, there exists a chance that the English or someone already has Mysticism, so I'll try and get ceremonial burial from one of the weaker tech civs and see if anyone has Mysticism yet.

"Note that our times for these will come down, because we can actually run 10% lux when Paris is size 4 (as long as we road to new towns or MP them), and once Rheims is hooked up we can almost eliminate lux entirely."

Haha... I think we've started getting powerful pretty fast in various ways.

"I would hang on to Math until we get a very very good deal for it (like CB+Wheel+ IW from England or something)."

11 gpt plus+Wheel+CB sounds like a good enough deal to me. The gpt might go down or go away.... but I think we can hang onto it for 4 or 5 turns, so I'll do that.... unless they have mysticsm... in which case ONLY the English will get maths. I'll start thinking about mass-trading it in 4 or 5 turns. I have a bad feeling about not having any iron.

I plan to start sending some settlers east to block Sumeria. A coastal town would come as nice for contact curraghs (I didn't worry about this until I remember Continents), but I think we have plenty of tundra space down there to get one and agricultural Sumeria seems more of an immediate concern.

 

[DWetzel]

Perhaps you misunderstood... England wanted that cash + gpt from us to buy CB from them. (Needless to say, I declined.)

 

[Spoonwood]

Concerning Lyons...

I've set this post apart so we hopefully remember it later. Put a big fat circle around Lyons.

I apologize if I should have discussed it's location with you, but if you consider this even if you think I made a weaker choice, you might find this interesting...

Looking around the terrain of Lyons we can see 5 bonus grasslands, 3 hills, a gold mountain, and 3 forests. If we settled on the hill we would have less. In retrospect I suppose one square west might actually come as a more productive position.... but of course that seemed quite wide at the time (I suppose we could have filled in the gap later on). Anyways, 5 BGs, 3 hills, and a gold mountain, and 3 forests. Once we get enough other cities up and running with military we can chop the forests to hurry a temple around Lyons (this part comes as the least important). Paris will still probably keep producing settlers or workers into the medieval period, I'd think. And we want the Hanging Gardens... So we can use Lyons to build The Hanging Gardens AND still keep cranking out settlers and workers from Paris and Orleans. We might even choose to take Lyons to size 12 around this period by merging workers into Lyons and max out its productivity fairly early on to try and secure The Hanging Gardens... or nab some other wonder... or build the Forbidden Palace early (yes... it's not in the right direction of expansion... but it's still good). If you don't do mass add-in workers already, Chamnix has an interesting strategy on merging workers from worker pumps.. go here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=277648 We can save on granaries (other than the cities which produce the workers) this way and get faster growth, if his calculation correct. I haven't tried it yet myself. The key, as I pointed out there, I think, lies in building workers from size 6 and under towns and then merging those workers into size 7 through 12 towns or slower growing less than 7 towns... we save on food this way for the cost of 10 shields and increase productivity and commerce faster.

But, there's more. In the high middle ages, we'll want Smith's for the other half of our Golden Age for sure. And we'll almost surely want Copernicus's and Newton's. Getting Smith's and those two basically requires or works most efficiently if two cities building wonders or pre-building at the same time (I've never planned medieval building strategy at this phase of a game before). Lyons might even nab some of the other Medieval Wonders to at least kill a cascade or two. And there's more. In the industrial age... even if we don't need to do this... we can have Paris build TOE. While Paris builds TOE, Lyons uses the Palace as a pre-build for Hoover's Dam. And in the modern age... the one with Newton's and Copernicus builds SETI and the other one goes for The Internet or the U.N.... already... I've gotten ahead of myself... but I think you see the point. Lyons will almost surely come out as 2nd most productive city due to its location, so we should probably keep it in mind.