Clive1 - Monarch (Training ?) game

[Sir Clive]

I'm on vacation, can't play until late Saturday or early Sunday (EDT). I've been checking in, but don't have CSC on this computer. Skip me this turn.

Hmm - this means I'm up again having played 14 turns last time ! I can probably find the time to play again
but seeing as I am probably the worst player on the team I don't really think it will do me much good playing every other turn

I'll swap myself and Admiral in the order but if we end up slowing down too much I'll advertise for someone else and mail Chester02 and ChunkyKong who expressed an interest at the start.

I''ll try to play 5 turns tonight and 5 tomorrow

Revised roster


Viper275 - Just played
MSTK- on vacation 31 Jul - 19 Aug
Sir Clive - Up !!!
mtgfreak - vacation 31 Jul - 13/14 Aug
Admiral Kutzov - On deck
Bede

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Quick note:

The formula for the military advisor uses the A + D value of your troops. It's something like 3A + 2D/?

of course ? meaning I don't remember that part.

 

[MSTK]

It's in the War Academy.

 

[Sir Clive]

Quick note:

The formula for the military advisor uses the A + D value of your troops. It's something like 3A + 2D/?

of course ? meaning I don't remember that part.

Thanks SesnOfWthr - looks as if we should have a chance against the Japanese then !

Anyway , I'm not going to planning on going to war before I finish the next 5 turns

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I've been reviewing in a little more depth since I'll be playing soon. Looks like the general plan is reverse Pearl Harbor on Japan. Do we attempt to get a dogpile or do we just bring in the Russians as they are the only proximate civ? Question 2 - where should we send the settlers we're pumping out? To near the Japanese border in anticipation of future growth in the destruction of Japan? Or fill towards the general north? Workers should build infrastructure until cities have nobody working unimproved tiles. Are we definite on FP in RIverbend? Someone posted about going across the top of the tech tree - are we going for Democracy? What about FA?

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Why bring in anyone? You have the capability to take them out yourselves, and that way you're not forced to wait twenty turns for peace if the rng gods hate you.

EDIT: if you have extra settlers, I might consider reserving them for combat use. Raze and replace guarantees no flips.

 

[Bede]

viper. I haven't looked at the save in detail but the terrain improvements appear to be coming along nicely and there seems to be a good mix of infrastructure building going on.

I'm inclined to think that we should go to war with Japan at some stage in the next 15 or so turns.

Absolutely

I think we have a better military than them

No kidding. See below

I think we should be able to take Izumo fairly quickly .We can get our 3MC straight there through the gap and then block the grassland tiles around Izumo which means that Jap units will have their movement impeded by the mountains. We should then be able to head for Tokyo to cut off their horses
so that even if we don't finish them off before they get to Chivalry we may still be able to prevent them from building any Samurai.

Izumo, then Tokyo, then straight across the heart.

a) The timing.

Now!

b) The units we will need to attack.
However we have 26 swordsman, 16 spearman, 15 3MC, 10 warrior so I guess that should be enough ?

Two stacks of swords, chariots, the odd spear or two and cats should be plenty and it looks like we can field three. Use the spears and swords to absorb counterattacks. Kill wounded attackers with war chariots, then advance the stack. War chariots should be able to provide mobile defense as well at 2.2.2 but will not do well attacking towns without cat support. They can also play havoc in groups of three or so wrecking the terrain improvements

c) The balance between improvements and military in that time . Is it as simple as just pumping out military in towns with Barracks and improvements / workers in those without ?

Keep the settler/worker farms running. Sesn's advice to raze and replace with combat settlers is sound until you find a city with something we want. Back line cities can keep on the infrastructure path. Barracks towns close to the front should build reinforcements.

Last time I looked the Japanese had no iron, so couldn;t build Samurai. The horsemen are a precursor unit to the Sam but they only need iron to build Sams.

As for the research path I think we should target towards universities and banks. It will mean obsoleting the Great Library but it was built to deny it to the AI.

Our next government change will probably be to Communism.

Leave some for me. I'm still looking forward to a silk jammie chariot ride.

I did play seventy shadow turns starting in 2550BC through 550BC but am still working on the analysis. All I ended up doing was proving the already known but sometimes it helps to experiment oneself. And I had never before had the opportunity to play with two perfectly functioning settler/worker farms in the same game. Now to get to the 6 turn settler/warrior factory...

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Now to get to the 6 turn settler/warrior factory...

If you go over to GOTM 31 (?) you can see how to set up a 4 turn settler/warrior factory.

I have been looking for THAT oppurtunity in every game for quite some time now. :sigh:

 

[Sir Clive]

Not a lot happened. However having seen the posts that have been
sent since I last looked it seems the next 5 turns might be more eventful
if I do declare against the Japanese (gulp )

Sorry don't have much chance to respond to the latest posts - it is 00-15 here now and I have tobe up early tomorrow

Looks like nice advice yet again Bede - unfortunately I didn't read it until after I had finished the first 5 turns so I cancelled the settler factory

---------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the log
---------------------------------------------------------------
Preturn - decide to follow Bede's advice re building and brokering our free
GL techs for cash.

We now have Monotheism, Feudalism and Engineering which we got from the GL at the
end of Viper275's turns

Unfortunately the only civs with any gold Russia and Egypt and they are presumably the
ones we got these techs from as they don't need them

Bede's suggestion for Riverbend to build the FP is strange to me. I still don't
understand the way FP works in Conquests and in Civ3 I would never have built it so close to the capital However I trust Bede's judgement (since judging by his other SGs he is way way ahead of me ! ) so I switch .

Greenland is our 3rd most productive city , already has Barracks and will have aquedect
finished in 3 turns so am going to switch that to replace Riverbend as the
military factory as soon as Aqueduct is complete. Trouble is
we will need a harbour there fairly soon otherwise growth will slow.

Am contemplating sending some of our workers NE to convert all the wetlands near rubble river
and spice jungle

Switch Osgiliath from Marketplace (due in 26) to courthouse (due in 16)
Tarsus is producing 6 excess food per turn but will reach size 6 in 2 turns and has no
Aqueduct so switch to Aqueduct. I know this was our worker factory but we now have
plenty of alternatives for pumping out workers.

460 AD (1) - Settler near Hubshna has nowhere to settle - only free tile is hills SE
of Chittagong and that might cause Indians to declare. Decide to send him SW
ready to grab spare land if we raze Japanese citites later or to join existing city.
Workers carry on mining / irrigating / roading grassland and plains

IT - Mongols declare war on Maya. Maya start building Sun Tzu.Riverbend -> FP due
in 15 turns. It doesn't have a courthouse yet but is only losing 2 spt at
the moment so decide to go for it now. Grassy beach starts building Galley in
anticipation of Japan attack. Oasisland MPlace->3MC. Samuha Library->Harbour.
Arabs start building Sun Tzu. Galley sinks off Mongol coast . Russia are
the only civ with any gold (170) but we have nothing to sell them.
Switch lux tax down dfrom 10% - 0% (missed this pre-turn )

470 AD (2) - Settle DesertFiller SE of Oasisland. Move workers , mine / irrigate / road

IT - Hattusas produces settler . Can't see much point in continuing to pump
out settlers so change to Barracks. Yalbert pikeman -> worker. Hubishna scout -> walls.
Decide to irrigate an already mined square NE of Karhuyuk since there is no
other way of getting irrigation through to Yalburt (hope this isn't too ).
No trading opportunities.
Am wondering whether I should be sending military out towrds the Japanese
border towns yet . However almost all towns have 3 military which are needed for
MP. The only spare ones are in plains city and Hattusha which are on the Japanese
border anyway. Have to find a couple more towns to build military methinks.

480 AD (3) - Send Hattusas settler towards Emar as there is nowhere to settle.
Move workers , mine / irrigate / road

IT - Greenland Aqueduct->MI, Karhayuk Harbour->Archer, Egypt start Sun Tzu
We can sell various tech to Maya , India, Mongols and Arabia, but none of them have more
than 8 gold. No one will give us gpt for anything. We could get Gems from Japan for Iron
(we have 3 spare iron ) but seeing as we are happy enough and they are our next target
I can't see any point. Kanesh no longer needs to be a settler factory so re assign
workers to get a few more shields

490 AD (4) - Realise there are 2 unimproved BG being worked south of Hattusha. Send workers
there. Move workers , mine / irrigate / road

IT - Kanesh MarketPlace -> Barracks. Yalbert worker->harbour. No trades possible -
richest civ has 26g.

500 AD (5) - Whilst moving workers around Delhi I realise that I can rush Courthouse
in Delhi (due in 44) for 176g . Delhi currently producing 8 shields, 7 lost to
corruption. Is it worth it ?

Stop here for now without seeing what happens in the interturn.

Not a lot happened in those 5 turns - hope I didn't screw up too bad folks !

Screenshot / save game to follow .....

 

[Sir Clive]

Saved Game

 

[viper275]

Looks like you did pretty good. With Tarsus I think we already have a good-sized worker force so we're probably fine. I'm wondering with Hattusas though, if we're going to war with Japan and plan to raze some cities, it would probably be nice to replace that space before anyone else (Russia especially) takes it, so I think we could use a few more settlers (like that one in Hattusha that you mentioned.)

Speaking of Hattusha, that city has a good number of 3MCs (along with Plains City) and would be great to begin our attack on Izumo and eventually Kyoto. To the north it looks like there are a bunch of Swordsmen and 3MCs that could attack Osaka, then meet with the Hattusha forces to attack Kyoto. After that we can grab minor cities like Shimonseki or Nara, or if we have more army left, we could try Tokyo. We also might like to get a few Pikemen to defend our cities near the border in case of a Japanesse attack during the war.

 

[Bede]

Bede's suggestion for Riverbend to build the FP is strange to me. I still don't
understand the way FP works in Conquests and in Civ3 I would never have built it so close to the capital However I trust Bede's judgement (since judging by his other SGs he is way way ahead of me ! ) so I switch .

DocT's the master on that one. I'm not sure I understand either. But in this case we will now have two compltetly corruption free cities, so your decision to let the capital grow is a good one. Is there another location that can do a 4 turn settler rotation, maybe between pop5 and pop7? That's a little trickier than pop4-pop6 but it will work. No matter what happens we will need a town producing settlers form now until the end of the game.

Greenland is our 3rd most productive city , already has Barracks and will have aquedect finished in 3 turns so am going to switch that to replace Riverbend as the military factory as soon as Aqueduct is complete. Trouble is
we will need a harbour there fairly soon otherwise growth will slow.

Is it capable of at least net 12spt? Growth will slow at pop7 anyway. Does it have a granary?

Am contemplating sending some of our workers NE to convert all the wetlands near rubble river and spice jungle

Nope. Use them to clear the forests first. One of the reasons I settled that town where I did was to get access to the forestst between it and the Russian town. Use 'em. Wetlands and jungles take way too many worker turns to clear right now for too little return. Use those towns as tax farms or for scientists

Switch Osgiliath from Marketplace (due in 26) to courthouse (due in 16)

Good move.

Tarsus is producing 6 excess food per turn but will reach size 6 in 2 turns and has no Aqueduct so switch to Aqueduct. I know this was our worker factory but we now have plenty of alternatives for pumping out workers.

Where?

IT - Hattusas produces settler . Can't see much point in continuing to pump
out settlers so change to Barracks.

Can't settle the Japanese lands with pikemen.
Also Haattusas is about as far from the front as you can get without falling off the map. Why not a marketplace?

IT - Greenland Aqueduct->MI

Why not chariots? They upgrade to knights.

Karhayuk Harbour->Archer,

Why not a galley? Archers aren't much good anymore.

We could get Gems from Japan for Iron (we have 3 spare iron ) but seeing as we are happy enough and they are our next target I can't see any point.

Good call

500 AD (5) - Whilst moving workers around Delhi I realise that I can rush Courthouse in Delhi (due in 44) for 176g . Delhi currently producing 8 shields, 7 lost to corruption. Is it worth it?

Probably not. When corruption is at the max adding a courthouse doesn't help enough to pay off the investment. (Also, the impact on shields is small compared to the impact on gold) Why not use Delhi as a source for workers or settlers (short-rushed) It's got lots of food IIRC. Delhi won't produce much of anything besides babies until we get to Nationalism in the IA. Also, we can use it for tax farming and scientists.

Short digression on short rushing: The first ten shields of any build are the most expensive (8g apiece). The remainder become progressively less expensive until they bottom out at 4g. So to cost effectively cash rush something you need at least ten shields in the box and the cheapest way to do that is to use a worker. Set the queue to worker, then buy the worker for 80g, then reset the queue to what you want and buy the rest.

As an example, you want to cash rush something worth 20 shields. Cash rushing from 0 will cost 160g. Instead you buy a worker for 80g and the next ten shields for only 40g or a total of 120g, saving 40g on the transaction. I should probably build a table to illustrate this.

@Sesn, can you do up a table for this one, kinda like your table for the settler farm?

Not a lot happened in those 5 turns - hope I didn't screw up too bad folks !

Overall, looking a whole lot better. A gentle reminder, though: don't build military in towns without barracks and don't build barracks in towns that won't get to net 12spt in a relatively short time frame. ANother gentle reminder, use the luxury tax to control happiness as well as MP's. It is a balancing act but it's not like we are short of gpt to buy a little entertainment.

It looks like it's time to go kill a few Japanese!

 

[Sir Clive]

Overall, looking a whole lot better. A gentle reminder, though: don't build military in towns without barracks and don't build barracks in towns that won't get to net 12spt in a relatively short time frame. ANother gentle reminder, use the luxury tax to control happiness as well as MP's. It is a balancing act but it's not like we are short of gpt to buy a little entertainment.

It looks like it's time to go kill a few Japanese!

Looks like very good advice yet again Bede - you'll make a Monarch player of me yet

I'll bear this in mind, will also switch Hattusus back to settlers

 

[SesnOfWthr]

@Sesn, can you do up a table for this one, kinda like your table for the settler farm?

I'm not sure what you'd like me to do with it Bede?

To clarify, to rush any project from scratch costs 8x shield cost. If you have even one shield in the box, then it is 4x shield cost. "short rushing" from scratch is what Bede just described up there, so you aren't paying 8x the entire shield cost. Not a great bargain for a 20 shield build, but very helpful for when you need an airport or something in the city asap.

Again, it's a pretty general rule, so I'm not sure what it is that you'd like me to do. Unless you just want a table showing the cost to short rush all the different builds vs if you pay full price for rushing them?

 

[Bede]

I'm not sure what you'd like me to do with it Bede?

To clarify, to rush any project from scratch costs 8x shield cost. If you have even one shield in the box, then it is 4x shield cost. "short rushing" from scratch is what Bede just described up there, so you aren't paying 8x the entire shield cost. Not a great bargain for a 20 shield build, but very helpful for when you need an airport or something in the city asap.

Again, it's a pretty general rule, so I'm not sure what it is that you'd like me to do. Unless you just want a table showing the cost to short rush all the different builds vs if you pay full price for rushing them?

Much better explanation than mine. Thanks Sesn.

For some obscure reason I thought there was a progression down to 4 from 8.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

I'm home. I can take it next if you want me to. I need to download the save and look around. Interesting developments.

 

[Sir Clive]

I'm home. I can take it next if you want me to. I need to download the save and look around. Interesting developments.

Seeing as I have played the first half of my 10 turns I might as well play the
second half
I'm just about to start - should finish before 0-00 London time and have the save / turnlog posted.

General tactics will be as per Bede's advice - i.e

change builds on military in towns without Barracks to something else.
Build barracks in towns that can get to 12 spt in a reasonable time.
Change some of the military builds to 3MC.
Possibly increase luxury tax so that some MP can be moved to the front line.

Not sure whether I not I will be declaring on Japan , but if all goes well
in turn1 will probably declare on turn 2 or 3 .

You're up after I have finished Admiral !


Viper275 - Just played
MSTK- on vacation 31 Jul - 19 Aug
Sir Clive - PLayed 5/10 turns - completing tonight
mtgfreak - vacation 31 Jul - 13/14 Aug
Admiral Kutzov - Back home and ready to go next !
Bede -

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

Took a look at the save. Agree Hattusas should continue to pump settlers to march towards Japan.

Suggestions:
1. Delhi -> settler, then granary or workers
2. Tarsus -> settler, then back to workers
3; Riverbend. Move worker from IG to forest to complete Fp in 10 instead of 11
4. Mine BG SW of Ivriz
5. Kanesh - rush barracks
6. Karhuyuk -> 3MC
7. Osgiliath - chop forest to rush CH, then barracks
8. Yalburt -> barracks
9. Plains City -> barracks
10. Hattusha -> barracks

Above are for thought/discussion & follow Bede's recommendations. Feel free to discard.

Russia has ToA & SoZ. Do we have to worry about filps in the border sities anytime soon? Should we expect AC to appear on our borders shortly?

In the past, I've headed for Democracy or Fascism as my next government (I like efficient workers). Please explain the benefits of Communism to a neophyte.

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Communism is the uber-government for warmongering.

All cities experience the same % of corruption, and you get a unit support of 6 for each town.

The benefit is that captured cities around the world are just as productive as those at home (percentage of corruption at least).

The drawback is that your core cities become noticeably more corrupt than before.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

The drawback is that your core cities become noticeably more corrupt than before.

So no wonder builds & trade/blackmail for tachs?