Blind leading the blind *Sponsered by: Bad decisions and generally bad planning*

[Bede]

2fer or 3fer or 4fer describes a technique for brokering technology. Look for or own a monopoly tech. Buy it if you need to, then trade it around for technology you don't have. The most important step is to go back to all the trading partners and see what they will offer for what you have just acquired. So you get 2 technologies by investing in 1, hence 2fer, or three, hence 3fer.

The technique works best when you are the contact manager. In other words you know all the nations and the other guys only know one or two. That's why early exploration is so important either by land (you don't know Alphabet so can't build curraghs or aren't on a coast line) or by sea.

Knowing how much a tech costs in beakers is marginally useful knowledge but not critical and you can calculate that by setting your research rate at faster than 50 turns and multiplying turns by the change in gpt.

Finding out how the AI values tech is simply a matter of offering it and see how they bid, then making the best deals possible.

The cardinal error in trading is to buy just to have. Only make an offer when you have another prospect waiting. I will frequently delay any early trading until I have at least one additional party for any trade I might make. And I usually never make a deal with the first people I meet. If, for example, everybody else on the map starts with Pottery and I don't and I'm pretty confident I will make one or more new friends quickly then I will wait to make any deal for it as it will only get cheaper with each new contact.

 

[Daghdha]

how much it would cost you and how much you could get back for it

The cost for me I usually check by asking around among those who have the tech of interest, but how can I calculate my coming profit without actually buying it?

 

[Daghdha]

If, for example, everybody else on the map starts with Pottery and I don't and I'm pretty confident I will make one or more new friends quickly then I will wait to make any deal for it as it will only get cheaper with each new contact.

Aha, so tech getting cheaper when more civs knows it should read, "when more civs that you have met knows it? Otherwise in your example Pottery wouldn't get cheaper as a fixed number of AI knows it from scratch and that number doesn't change as long as I don't buy/learn it (unless some AI forget pottery ). I thought the decrease in cost was unrelated to my knowledge of other civs...am I coherent

 

[Bede]

So far so good. The core concept is the knowing nations known.

 

[BlackJAC]

Tatran, do you have any preferences on order of play? If anyone really has the urge to take the first 20 turns then feel free to step forward. If not we'll stick to the Roster on the first page.

That would mean order of play goes as follows,

Roster:

BlackJAC - UP
Daghdha - on deck
Tatran
Shadow-Walker

I'll assume that we're all aware the initial turns will be 20 -10 -10 -10, then followed by 10 -10 -10 -10 for the remainder of the game.

I'm happy to allow anyone that wishes too, to take a couple of extra turns if they feel the need to tidy up before handing it onto the next player.

I would prefer if no one declared on their last 2/3 turns as it's not very fair to the next player.

For obvious reasons no one can dictate whether the AI declares or not in most cases.

I'm also for giving into any early demands the AI may make, this taking into accout the likelyhood they will declare on emperor.

I've got a few questions if i'm up first

I'd normally irrigate the cattle first and road second. This means the 2nd citizen will be wasted for small amount of time until the second road is in place. Is this ok with everyone?

I would go with the following build order: Scout>warrior>settler. Is this ok?

And we all agree we head towards maths from the off?

Teh original save

 

[Tatran]

Play order is ok.

Don't waste the second citizen.
So scouting is important,but also city growing.
Either use the luxury slider or use MP.

 

[BlackJAC]

Ok, i've managed to build Scout>Warrior>Settler

Any prefrences where we'll build our third city? I say 3rd as we popped our second from a hut, way up north from Moscow (see picture 2). I don't think it will last long before flipping or being attacked. I've put a green dot where i think the 3rd city should go as it's next to the Ivory.

we really will be under the cosh in this one guys. We're gonna be sandwiched between the Romans, Vikings and Mongols. Nice Suffice to say there could be others. I'd prefer to build a 3rd scout now as we really, really need to explore this map faster and use our expansionist trait when it's needed most, it's wasted otherwise.

Pic 1

Pic 2

 

[Daghdha]

I would prefer if no one declared on their last 2/3 turns as it's not very fair to the next player.

That might be a situation where we could end a few turns early and have a brief chat about it, or the current player at least gets an opinion from the one following him.
About building order it seems ok to me. I haven't played exp. civs before by I assume that getting most out of it means Scouts and searching for huts. Perhaps building warrior first, for garrison, could lessen the need to adjust lux slider?
The MM is my weak spot I guess but just as a note I sometimes skip roading when tiles to be worked is 1 step apart like in this case. It impedes golds a bit but it can sometimes lead to getting new citizens right on a productive tile. When playing alone I am sloppy with this but in an SG I'll calculate some. The "skip roading when suited" is not a suggestion but an option. I guess with experience this calculating is easy since you know from the top of your head how many turns this and that takes, moving worker included. For a new player, or at least for me, it is time consuming.

 

[Daghdha]

I'm wondering if we could use the narrowing in landmass to the north as a defensive line? We could settle S of the river, def. bonus, with cow + 2 ivory + fish, but I'm not keen on going there without escort if I'm not certain no barbies are there. We have 4 ivory in sight . Could that mean a possible monopoly? If so, then SoZ is coming home easy. If Julius gets to the river first our settler could go back to the suggested green spot.
edit: Any trade options?

 

[BlackJAC]

It's taking one hell of a chance going unescorted, but worth a try. i'm more worried rome declares on us than the prospect of running into barbs as there's not any GH's in the near vicinity. I think that area will be the first place Caesar will send a settler too. You've also got to realise we won't have ivory linked to the capital any time soon if we go with your idea. Whereas, the green dot will allow this much sooner. I think due to the fact we're going to be sandwiched between some nasty civ's here it's better to expand outwards rather than trying to back fill later on.

Also, i think using St Pete's to produce another scout rather than a warrior will help us more at this moment too, if we lose the city it's no great loss as it's too far to be of any great use to us just now. That would also allow Moscow to produce something more useful like a worker, settler or warrior.

 

[Daghdha]

I won't argue on the inward out bit. It's how I usually do myself and it's good for corruption reasons too, so go with it. My thougt about the SoZ was that we will not start on it soon even if we have Ivory connected. Probably not even when we have math so it's no hurry roading it to Moscow. Even less hurry if we're the only civ having Ivory . Anyway follow your plan and I'll go with it 100%. We'll get to that river later on

edit: About St.Petes I'd go warrior->scout and then explore. I think AI respect numbers and the more cities we have the less they'll act. Not sure about that, just a hunch.

 

[BlackJAC]

4000BC

Settle on spot and Moscow is founded. Send worker to road cattle and send our scout north (towards our already discovered Ivory)

3900BC

Zzzz

3850BC

Keep heading north with scout

3800BC

Move worker SW to BG

3750BC

Scout>warrior. Send 2nd scout East

3700BC

Zzzz GH gives us a map

3650BC

Moscow grows, up lux to 10%

3600BC

Our northern scout spots the red borders of Rome.

3550BC

The arrival of Percy our warrior delights the locals. After much head scratching from Percy, Percy decides his time is better spent looking after the locals. Up Science to 100% upon his arrival.

Our Northern Scout makes contact with caesar. He's having none of this trading malarkey.

3500BC

Zzzz

3400BC

Zzzz

3300BC

Moscow grows, up lux to 10%

3250BC

Zzzz

3200BC

Rangar pays us a visit nothing doing with him either.

Our northern scout pops St Pete's from the hut. Bang in the middle of China and The Romans. WTH? (I'll let others decide what to do with this city)

3150BC

Moscow produces settler>worker.

Mongol warrior approaches our borders and we make contact.

3100BC

Send settler north to secure ivory. We now have masonary. Alpha due in 21 turns.

3000BC

Settler in place.

I know you're itching to play this Daghdha, but I really think we need input from the others before we can go on. Right next to our unescorted settler there's a hairy Roman warrior itching to declare.

Roster:

BlackJAC: played
Daghdha: up
Tatran: on deck
Shadow-Walker:

THE SAVE

 

[Daghdha]

Got it!
Will look into it and wait until tomorrow afternoon before doing anything (stupid). Well done BJ

 

[BlackJAC]

Our current state:

 

[BlackJAC]

I think a CxxC layout will be the better option in the game. Considering we're stuck in the middle here, fast deployment of troops will be paramount to the survival of our cities.

It's unfortunate that to secure the Ivory we've had to cross the river.

Oh, and daghdha, if you don't want Moscow to go down to size 1 i'd change the production on your first turn. I say this as I usually forget about things like this when i load games up.

 

[Tatran]

Any trades possible?
Rome and the Vikings have the Alphabet.

Which city should build the SoZ?
Moscow would be the fastest way.
3 BG,1 sugar plains means already 8 uncorrupted
shields.With a little luck have the SoZ within 20 turns.
(Don't forget to build barracks after it.)

St. Petersburg should indeed build some more scouts,
so we have a good view/picture of the continent.
After researching Mathematics my suggestion would be
researching the strategic resources techs or trade for it.

cxxc placing is fine with me,except when there are too many
foodless tiles.

 

[Bede]

lurker's comment:
I have taken the liberty oif shadowing the first 20 and will be happy to post the results here if you think you can tolerate a "lurker lecture". Let me know.

 

[BlackJAC]

Any trades possible?
Rome and the Vikings have the Alphabet.

Which city should build the SoZ?
Moscow would be the fastest way.
3 BG,1 sugar plains means already 8 uncorrupted
shields.With a little luck have the SoZ within 20 turns.
(Don't forget to build barracks after it.)

St. Petersburg should indeed build some more scouts,
so we have a good view/picture of the continent.
After researching Mathematics my suggestion would be
researching the strategic resources techs or trade for it.

cxxc placing is fine with me,except when there are too many
foodless tiles.

Before researching mas, both Rome and Vikings were not interested in trading Alpha. Masonary came in at the tail end of my turn, so i thought I'd leave it for the next person to see if they'll trade with us now.

Daghdha doesn't agree with us on what St Pete's should build. That's 2 -1 in favour of St Pete's building scouts. The city is worthless to us at the moment and should be building units we need for the short term and not warriors. That would mean we can concentrate on our core cities building workers, settlers and military units, military units that won't require 15 or so turns before they even reached our core cities.

Going for philosophy first would make more sense, that way we can choose an expensive tech and trade it around.

Looking at the current map there doesn't seem to be many mountians around us. We may toil to have iron.

 

[BlackJAC]

lurker's comment:
I have taken the liberty oif shadowing the first 20 and will be happy to post the results here if you think you can tolerate a "lurker lecture". Let me know.

Hmmm, i'm sure Tatran had issues with Whomp wanting to do this (I could be wrong). I'll wait to see what he says about it first before deciding either way.

 

[Tatran]

The Romans have a lot of hills and mountains,sounds not good.
We could use the Pyramids as a pre-build for the SoZ,after Moscow
finished the worker,they can road the ivory and mine around Moscow.

Our expansion phase will slow down,but we can (try to) compensate it later.