Competing VC's (take 2)

[Dhoomstriker]

No, I want to EXPLORE all of that land so that we will know which areas can be spawn-busted and which ones will need a patrolling Axeman nearby.

What I don't want to do is build 1 or 2 Axes and park them within our borders while 8 to 10 Barb units accumulate in the wilderness, just waiting for the "signal to attack" that will invariably come.


I'm also a bit confused... one person wants to revolt out of Slavery while another wants to revolt into it.

Since we're Spiritual, I'll make the call based on the F3 screen--if it says that we will save a Gold piece and if I don't foresee needing to whip within the first 5 turns of play, I'll save us that Gold piece.

 

[shyuhe]

Events are on so we can get hit with the slave revolt.

 

[Habitus]

Not yet we can't requirements for the event are

Slavery Civic AND city with population 4 or more AND WRITING or MONOTHEISM or PRIESTHOOD or IRON_WORKING

 

[Dhoomstriker]

After Fishing, I went for Writing to go along with our cheap Libraries.

In the capital, I built a couple of Warriors after the Barracks and then built a Settler, which I whip-overflowed into a Granary.

Here you can see where our Scout found Shaka's lands.



We picked up a Quest... however, by the end of the turnset, the only source of Horse that I could find was the one in the last screenshot, far to the east. I don't see how we'll feasibly beat Shaka to that Horse Resource, so we'll probably have to aim to Axe rush him at some point (he tends to build Impis more than Axemen anyway, so if he has Copper or Iron, using Axemen against him is probably a good move anyway).

Here's the War Chariots Quest, although we don't have a State Religion, so either the Quest is buggy or my text of the Events listing is out-of-date, since the Events text claims that you need to be running a State Religion:
Quest11:
War Chariots
Prereq: THE_WHEEL AND State Religion
Obsolete: MONARCHY or LITERATURE or CODE_OF_LAWS or AESTHETICS or MATHEMATICS or ALPHABET or HORSEBACK_RIDING or IRON_WORKING or METAL_CASTING
Active/Weight: 25/200
Aim:
Build default number of players for this world size +1 Chariots (8 for standard)
Result:
1.All Chariot units gain the Combat 1 promotion
2.Spread your state religion to 5 own cities



Here you see us regrowing Thebes whereby our Granary is going to be pretty close to full upon growth. I imagine that we'll want another couple of Warriors or an Axeman while we regrow the City to at least Size 4. Size 5 is questionable since we don't have a 5th improved square yet.


Memphis got settled right away and is a nice little powerhouse for helping with our REX. Technically, after that Settler is built, you could build a Settler or a Worker next, instead of finishing the Granary, as you don't have to complete the queued build items, just the first build item in the list. The Granary does have Hammers invested in it but I'm thinking that we'll probably want another Settler or Worker to come after the current Settler before going back to working on the Granary.

The Wheat is Roaded and we're currently building a Road on the Desert to the NE of there (sorry Habitus, I know that you don't like to Road Desert squares, but sometimes you have to do so). After that, I'd connect-up the Cow, which I didn't Road in order to get the Wheat online a bit faster.

I would also recommend that you keep an eye on Resource trading possibilities. We don't have any Happiness Resources and we really don't need so many Healthiness Resources, so I would aim to gift at least our Fish and Cow to the AIs as soon as they will take them (it doesn't matter if we give away our only copy of said Resources as we have more than sufficient Healthiness without them). If you can keep the AIs happy, we'll be less likely to be declared upon when we're not ready for them.


Since we're Creative, I decided to settle Heliopolis (our third City) in a location to cuturally attack Shaka's latest settled City, which should hopefully help to carve out some extra land for us that he probably otherwise would have beaten us to settling. Writing will come a little bit later but I think that land-grabbing is important at this stage of the game.


I laid down a bunch of signs for decent City locations after having explored most of the nearby area. Our next City should probably be 2S of the GH Pig, which picks up a bunch of Riverside squares and an extra Grassland Hills square compared to settling 1W of there. 1W of there grabs 1 more Flood Plains square that will otherwise get wasted but the rest of the squares overal or are non-Riverside, non-Hills squares, which is why I believe that the 2S of the GH Pig location is better.


To the south of our capital the area looks barren of Food, so if we do settle there, we should aim to share the Cow + Wheat. I don't foresee us going for The Great Lighthouse so I didn't prioritize a coastal location, but 1W of the PWheat or SW + S of the GCow COULD work if we wanted a coastal location, but with that City only being able to share 1 Food Resource. It's not a stellar area and no AI is going to steal it form us for a long time, so it's far from a priority to settle down there.


Here's a view of the east... I suppose that we could consider beelining the Horse Resouce but I doubt that we'll be able to beat Shaka to it. I suppose that it would be possible to do, but you'd probably have to 1-pop-whip our 2nd City to complete the Settler and even then who knows if you'd get it before Shaka does. I'd be okay with trying for it, but I think that I prefer settling 2S of the GH Pig location, so that Shaka isn't tempted to steal it out from under us, as it's by far a much better location (and the 2S of the GH Pig location also already has a Farmed Flood Plains square ready for you to work).



EDIT: Oh yeah, Monte built The Oracle and took Monarchy with it. There aren't any Religions owned by any of the 2 AIs that we have met, so maybe Monte's eventual Great Prophet will be worth one of Code of Laws or Christianity, to get a Religion in our nearby area.

Stonehenge and The Great Wall were built in the turnset before mine, in case you hadn't noticed.

 

[Habitus]

As long as we have 1 desert tile with no resources + unroaded it's fine as the event can trigger then

As for the quest, we got it as someone else triggered it, sharing a continent with just 2 warmongers is going to be interesting so I don't think grabbing the horse for the quest would be the best move

 

[Dhoomstriker]

As long as we have 1 desert tile with no resources + unroaded it's fine as the event can trigger then

Does the percentage chance of the relevant event (I think that it's for a boost to research on a tech, right?) get increased for more than 1 Unroaded Desert or are the percentages of that event possibly happening all relative to other events, such that as long as there's one spot that it can be triggered, we have the same chance as 100 spots?

As for the quest, we got it as someone else triggered it,

Ahhh, good call. Well, Monte has already failed at it, since he researched Monarchy. I'm not sure that it will be worth delaying Alphabet... I mean, Shaka doesn't seem to trade techs until he's Pleased with you but having the ability to trade techs can turn a war into a 2vs1 in our favour.

sharing a continent with just 2 warmongers is going to be interesting so I don't think grabbing the horse for the quest would be the best move

Well, what you say is particularly true since the nearby area around that Horse Resource is so terrible that it's not even a good site to beeline. It does suck, though, since we are playing as the War Chariot Queen. If we do manage to get a source of Horse (that one will likely be the only one possible from what I have seen), we'll need to remember to promote up the Flanking line instead of the Combat line, to avoid duplication with the Quest's reward of free Combat I. Such a promo would stick with our units for a long time, since, generally, unique units take a long time in the tech tree to become obsolete, meaning that if we DID manage to successfully complete the Quest, we'd have free Combat I on our future Cuirassiers and Cavalry, as long as they were built as War Chariots and upgraded later.

It's a bit of a pipe dream, though, since we would have to avoid Alphabet (amongst many other techs), but since Iron Working also obsoletes the Quest, it's unlikely that an Immortal level AI will beat us to completing it, so it's only a matter of how long we want to delay our research for a free Combat I promo.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Notes to the next player:

The spawn-buster to the south of our capital should probably be moved 1W onto the GHFor, so as to spawn-bust for Barb Galleys.

The Worker at Heliopolis is Farming a Flood Plains square but could probably switch to Farming the PWheat River once our borders expand, since it looks like we should steal Shaka's Farmed Flood Plains square to work while waiting for the Wheat to come online.


You will probably want to send another spawn-buster to hang out around Heliopolis and should probably keep the Scout near to where it is currently located, as another spawn-buster. We have scouted enough of the surrounding lands for now and if we do go scouting again, it will probably be within Shaka's borders once we pick up Writing, so it'll be nice to stay in the area instead of risking out Scout in the wilds versus Barb Archers.

The other Warriors that are in the wilderness are in decent spawn-busting positions but feel free to adjust their positions as new units come to help out and/or our Cultural Borders expand.


EDIT: If you are daring, you can 1-pop-whip the Settler in Memphis (City 2) as well as growing Thebes (our capital) to Size 4 and then 2-pop-whipping a Settler, to see if you can get both a Horse Resource City and the GHPig City. I'm not sure where we'd settle a Horse City, but probably NW + W of the PHorse, i.e. SE of the GJungle Banana. If you can't get both locations, then the GH Pig location is far more important.

 

[Habitus]

The ratio of it happening is to all other events that are possible to be triggered. Since a single desert (floodplains don't count iirc as it's consider a bonus) is enough to trigger the event and so has same chance as 100 to do it. Yeah it's something like 20% of current tech.

I may try the double settler plan if people think the quest is important enough to risk it, at worst I can pull back and settle another site if we are too late. Settling it doing quest and then gifting it for diplo would of been nice if it wasnt breaking the rules

 

[Habitus]

Going to play friday night/weekend i think. Doing some hof games at moment before deadlines

 

[Habitus]

Quiet session really, decided not to go for horses and was a good decision as I saw one of Shaka's settlers go past early in my Turnset so doubt we'd of beaten him.

Wonders built so far



Just started trading our spare wheat for clams with Shaka, our warriors at moment are either garrsion or in spawn busting positions, the scout took over the south area spawn busting. Got a workboat out that is starting to explore now as well.

Not seen anything new really so didn't take a screen shot.

 

[babybluepants]

Hate seeing wheat and copper not worked.
What do you need Sailing for?
Early IW+Calendar seems good here. Aesthetics less so, with Monte and Shaka the only AIs.
I think we should invest in some roads E-W.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

So, I guess we need to roll to see who plays next. Note that I am unable to access Civ IV for now and for an uncertain amount of time in the future, so the game will likely stall once it gets back to me, unless we just skip me for this round or unless we all continue to play at a really slow and relaxed pace (playing at a relaxed pace would be fine by me).

 

[babybluepants]

I think shyuhe's out of town this weekend, so I guess we wait or someone else rolls?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I'm fine with waiting. The biggest decision I think will be: do we go for Alphabet and obsolete one of the best possible Quests for Egypt to get or do we avoid learning and of these techs for a while (probably staying at a 0% Science Rate for a while after getting Sailing or any other early techs that we might want):
MONARCHY
LITERATURE
CODE_OF_LAWS
AESTHETICS
MATHEMATICS
ALPHABET
HORSEBACK_RIDING
IRON_WORKING
METAL_CASTING

If we avoid learning these techs, we should gear up for an Axe + Spear war on Shaka with the primary goal of stealing the City that has his Horse Resource and any Cities that he may have since settled to the north of our lands.

That way, we can make our War Chariots, which will then get a free Combat I promo which will be of great use since we can build War Chariots for quite a long time, setting us up for a free promo on stacks of Knights, Cuirassiers, or Cavalary later on in the game, not to mention actually being able to put our Unique Unit into play, which is a pretty awesome Unique Unit and is worth chasing after, even if we don't complete the Quest.

We probably won't gain many techs from just Shaka + Monte if we race for Alphabet anyway, so I'm in favour of rushing Shaka's Horse City (building Roads toward it at some point if we can ever get the extra Worker turns to do so), capturing any other Cities that Shaka founded to the north, then holding the line against Shaka.

Shaka doesn't trade techs unless he is Pleased with you anyway and without a Religion on our continent, our best way to get techs out of him will be via peace deals, thus we could just "hold the line" while we build our War Chariots and learn Alphabet (getting Alphabet after completing the Quest) and then sue for peace by taking whatever techs he will give us while we build up even more War Chariots, to either finish Shaka off or put a dent in Monte before Monte goes for Feudalism.

Recall that Monte picked up Monarchy from The Oracle.

 

[Habitus]

O forget to reply. I went sailing because I knew it didn't obsolete the quest and i was undecided if we should go for it so put decision off to next player It gets us foreign trade routes as well.

Roads E-W are fine, once we're done with improving the resources, for quick movement between cities. We have trade routes in all cities currently so less need to rush them.

IW was what i was planning on teching if quest wasn't wanted, I like the relaxed pace so I'm fine waiting