D'Artagnan01: Low-level Training Day

[Tribute]

I actually think that Amiens could be integral to settling the south isle. Sure we need to get rid of it, but in the meantime those two wheats are really good looking for growth and Republic settler rushes.

And it's true, we need more galleys for island grabbin' and more settlers for land grabbin' and more money for tech grabbin'.

Short term goals:
Switch to Republic. Increase money and allow for better rushing. Rush a quick galleys in corrupt towns and rush settlers where appropriate.

Lower science and lux until we make a decent amount of money, especially with specialist help.

Use the quick rush disband thingy I mentioned to lower unit costs and allow for cheaper and faster rushes.

Amiens will settler rush to fill the South island (make it stay above size 2 at all times and at max growth, so build settler at size 4 or size 3 going to 4 in 1.) Hey, I made the mistake of disbanding one town. We should make the most of this one.

Make galleys: 1 for the east, 1 more for the west. Not only can the galleys, chains send settlers in a sort of belt loop, one more is free to go up the west side of the continent looking for contacts and exploring.

Make settlers, small towns can make these. The main cities can make infrastructure such as libraries and markets. Both. But markets should come first so we can rush, rush, rush!

Make border temples. The towns on the north end near the Iro's should rush temples to give us a cultural advantage over overlap, solidify our border, and allow us to work a few more tiles.

Blockade the Iro's. Just try and block the Iro's from settler advancing! Do anything! Even lure barbs to attack them. I don't care. Just do something!!! In which case the two settlers now should just go north.

Long Term: Once the markets then libraries finish as well as expansion.
We'll be technologically backwards. This will be no trouble if we find the other continent, for we'll be able to get all contacts and research/buy our way up.

Buy our way out of being backwards. We'll have money from not researching. Our galleys will most likely find a way across for contact on their land (or theirs to ours). We'll be able to buy a few techs and xfer trade them [at what they think is monopoly] to the English and Iro's until we're okay.

Start up research. Once we get Education or a bit before, we can start universities. Then our research can go into high gear. But which path, top or bottom? We should probably go top, where we can research all the optionals quickly (printing press, democracy, and free artistry) and then get speedier research on banking, chemistry, physics, astronomy, music theory, navigation, and economics. The AI love democracy.

Sell techs like mad: Make money off of our government monopoly of democracy. With this, we will ensure our victory! Not only will we be able to rush courthouses and libraries everywhere, but our research should go up as well.

Start a prebuild in Lyons. We need both Cop's and Newton's preferably both in Lyons. This'll just make research wonderfully fast for us. If only we could've built the Colossus there too. We should probably force Paris to sacrifice tiles to Lyons (as it is coastal and will lack shield tiles)

Add worker brigades to Lyons for speed growth. Don't you hate it when the AI wins, even with your prebuild? Not anymore, the patented 'add worker brigades to Lyons for speed growth' is a guarenteed measure that is extremely useful. Of course, that's only if the wheat that Paris will sacrifice won't be enough to get it to size 12 very fast.

Switch Palace to somewhere either north more (a little south of wine city), to the west isle, or to the east big one. It'll probably go to the wine city as we should be warring versus the Iro's at some point.

Learn warfare. We'll be going against the Iro's, right? In Republic too. To minimize losses, we must learn to use cannons, musketeers, and longbows effectively. As we may not get horses and iron together. But we BETTER get saltpeter.

Prepare for the golden age! With musketeers comes a GA. How the heck are we gonna use that? More troops or more infra? Which is better, a weak Iroquois nation and a large (possibly resource full [for the Space Race]) France or a fast researching France?

And that's as far as I can go. The rest is too random and situational for me to guess. I hope those are good plans.

 

[Bede]

Blocking the Iro from coming any further south is important, so pack in as many towns as we can up there. Get water up the neck and into those grasslands. If we do that we can have specialist farms.

I think Tribute's idea of trading rather than researching our way through the Middle Ages is a good one. I would choose Gunpowder, Education, Printing Press and Navigation and maybe Democracy as our must haves, so we need to raise/conserve enough cash to afford them when the time comes. So markets are a good choice if we think we can get any commercial benefit (more than 10 uncorrupted gold before the market goes up, so get those courthouses built).

Much depends on the contacts we can make in the next three sets. So burn some galleys east and west to force an ocean crossing.

Towns north of the neck will never need more than the city center and the first nine fields. Their only purpose in life is to breed specialists and should never grow past six. Accordingly they won't need any culture buildings either. Just pack 'em in, garrison them well and all will be well. If you wonder what a specialist town builds since it doesn't really need any buildings, it builds catapults, or cannon, or artillery pieces, or a boat if it is on the coast ('cause you never have enough of any of those)

And I am not a big fan of moving the Palace. The benefits of the move served the needs of the GOTM almost domination for high Jason score players and the tactic was developed with those games in mind. That is not the game we are playing!

I am wondering about wonders. Copernicus (Astronomy) and Newton's (Physics) are both good to have for the game we are playing. Getting them both at Lyons might be tough.

And those islands are tempting, but unless they have fresh water or some other resource we need, worthless to us. True, there may be resources we can't see out there, but I wouldn't want to wreck the economy just for insurance against something that might not happen. If necessary later we can always build an army to take them away from whomever holds them.

War with both Iro and England is a necessity, but not until we can win. So Gunpowder, Metallurgy and Military Tradition are also in our future. If we had the tools to self research I would be tempted to ignore the top of the MA tree and go straight down the MilTrad road. But we don't and in order to acquire them we need Navigation (I know it's an optional but it allows Map Trading and trade across oceans and costs less than Magnetism and you get something back from it).

Clear as mud, and can anybody but me translate those rambllings into an answer to the question: What do I do in the next ten turns?

 

[Ansar]

Clear as mud, and can anybody but me translate those rambllings into an answer to the question: What do I do in the next ten turns?

1. Switch to Republic
2. Disband units that are not needed, obviously not workers.
3. Increase lux slider if needed, but not extra.
4. Use the "other" techs to trade through the MA.
5. Plan for a beeline on Military Tradition.

I dont know how to describe setting up Lyons for Newtons and Copernicus.

 

[Bede]

I would add one last thought:

Manage the core for commerce and growth

 

[Tribute]

I really don't see how the east islands may be useless. They are relatively close to Paris and Lyons and won't be super corrupt. According to the map, they're only 2nd to 3rd (and farthest are 4th or 5th depending how we settle) rings away from Lyons and Paris.

They'll be able to provide a bit more than what it costs to pay for their upkeep too. And we're trying to get to space, right? Wouldn't an AI be hurt by spending so much time to get to the islands that they'd slow the tech pace? If we get it, we may be speeding it up, especially if we just do the specialist thingy and grow the closest into super commerce coastal cities.

Pleeeeeeeeease? I whine for your approval, Bede. Or is it whinnie?

At any rate, CommandoBob is the one who will take action.

 

[Bede]

I really don't see how the east islands may be useless. They are relatively close to Paris and Lyons and won't be super corrupt. According to the map, they're only 2nd to 3rd (and farthest are 4th or 5th depending how we settle) rings away from Lyons and Paris.

They'll be able to provide a bit more than what it costs to pay for their upkeep too. And we're trying to get to space, right? Wouldn't an AI be hurt by spending so much time to get to the islands that they'd slow the tech pace? If we get it, we may be speeding it up, especially if we just do the specialist thingy and grow the closest into super commerce coastal cities.

Pleeeeeeeeease? I whine for your approval, Bede. Or is it whinnie?

At any rate, CommandoBob is the one who will take action.

Hate to keep raining on your parade, Tribute, but get your umbrella out.

Those islands have no fresh water, no fresh water means no irrigation, no irrigation means no more the 2f from grassland, no more than 2f means no specialists.

And the corruption is awful, well over 50%, but that doesn't bother me. After all I wrote the book on managing corrupt towns (see the War Academy). If those islands had fresh water I would be all over them with towns every two fields, watering everything that is flat and getting either 9 net beakers or 6 net gold out of every single one of them until railroads and then getting even more. But without fresh water it ain't gonna happen until Electricity and by then it will be too late.

There may come a point when we will need to settle those islands for troop support. But it is not now.

And if those islands had luxuries or iron, then it is another matter.

IMNSHO, without water or resources, they just ain't any good

 

[Tribute]

Ah, okay, I guess. So what about Amiens? Are we just gonna abandon it?

Ooh, and I haven't been to the academy in a while. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[CommandoBob]

Long Term
Get to Alpha Centauri before the Mad Monk resorts to using red and bold together.

Mid Term
Explore the oceans and meet new people.
Create a bunch of small specialist towns north of Dijon.
Prepare for an eventual war with the Orange Crush or the Purple People Eaters.

Short Term
Garrison off the Purple from the southlands using a wall of military units. Shortest barricade will be 7 units, two are already in place. This can be done on turn one.

Build two cities along this line.
Settler in Rheims walks Cherbourg, and builds a city W-W-NW of Cherbourg, on the coastal grassland. Will take about 7 turns to get into place (5 turns on roads to get to the hill W of Cherbourg, then two more unroaded tiles). City built on turn 8.
Settler in Paris heads to the hill NE of Cherbourg, taking 6 turns to walk this far. City built on Turn 7.

Galley near Chartres heads to Rouen, picks up warrior, drops him off on Littler France, due west of Rouen, to explore. Galley continues west, to bravely stay in ocean and sea tiles for the greater glory of France.

Galley up north continues to map the north coast of England.

Third galley needs to heal before we send it exploring eastward.

Learn Currency in one turn, and then begin to learn Construction.

Revolt to Republic after we learn Currency. Find out how many turns of anarchy we have.

All our citizens become geeks the first turn after the revolution and we learn Construction like crazy. On the second turn we fire enough geeks so no city starves. On the third turn everyone is a geek again. We repeat this process until we settle down. As I understand it, a city will not lose food on the turn after it riots, so once it riots we can hire all the specialists we want. This will make the population happy, so we must feed them on the following turn (or else the city will starve) but when we do the people become unhappy and riot again. About the only time this tactic is worthwhile is in Anarchy, since we cannot build anything anywhere.

Once we get into Republic start disbanding weak military units, (mostly warriors). We need our workers (13), galleys (3) and the settlers (2). We have 19 warriors to disband. We can handle about 20 units or so before we must pay the 2gpt upkeep. Roughly all the warriors and half the archers will be disbanded. We will need to keep some units along the 38th parallel to keep Hiawatha and Elizabeth looking to expand into each other and not us.

If possible, disband these units in cities so we don't lose the 2 shield per warrior rebate. So begin moving them on turn one to someplace building a library or something else permanent.

Amiens on Little France needs to be abandoned-to-settler and moved 1NW onto the forest. Or maybe just abandoned-to-settler and returned to Greater France.

Change military builds to something more useful, like libraries or courthouses.

 

[Tribute]

Yes that's about right. Just play on! Oops, that's a ropes course quote. (And nobody understands whatever the heck I just said.)

 

[Tribute]

Did you get scared away, CommandoBob? It's been two days now.

 

[D'Artagnan59]

If we re-settle Amiens, rename it Amiens, and continue with the order. The order from civfanatics is:

Paris
Orleans
Lyons
Rheims
Tours
Marseilles
Chartres
Avignon
Besancon
Rouen
Grenoble
Dijon
Amiens
Cherbourg
Poitiers
Toulouse
Bayonne
Strasbourg
Brest
Bordeaux
Rennes

 

[Tribute]

You know, I've always wondered. If you were playing as the French and got all the way around the city name list to New Orleans and the Americans already had New Orleans, would the name be skipped or kept the same?

 

[CommandoBob]

Did you get scared away, CommandoBob? It's been two days now.

RL issues. Played some turns, will post later.

 

[CommandoBob]

01 0130 BC

Fortify our elite archer, now at 3/5 strength, just before he faces four conscript barbarian horsemen.
Settler in Paris becomes 6TurnSettler.
Galley near Chartres becomes WestwardHoGalley.
Settler in Rheims becomes 8TurnSettler.
Galley in the north becomes ArcticGalley.
Wake Warrior Jacques and move S onto hill, a future city site (6TurnSettler).
Warrior Dude moves S.
To get water north of Dijon, move two workers to plain E-SE of Dijon.
WestwardHoGalley moves to be NW of Rouen.
Load WarriorYellow into WestwardHoGalley, to be dropped off on Littler France.
Send the rWarrior SE of Cherbourg E to be 1W of the four conscript barbarian horsemen. I hope he gets attacked and the eArcher does not.
Of three units on the hill W of Cherbourg, leave one archer in place, move the other archer due W into a forest and WarriorWilly NW onto grassland. We now have blockaded off part of this land mass from English and Iroquois foot units.
Move two workers to the plains SW of Tours to irrigate.
WorkerB and D, in the forest W of Orleans, make a road. Since we plan to revolt shortly, we do not want to waste this chop.
rWarrior in Cherbourg, SE, S and E, to be barbarian horse bait.

Tours rSpear -> courthouse, 23 turns
Marseilles rSpear -> courthouse, 23 turns
Rouen rSpear -> galley, 7 turns
Amiens rWarrior -> Settler (zero growth)
Cherbourg walls -> worker, 5 turns
Toulouse rWarrior -> galley, 24 turns
Bayonne rWarrior -> library, 38 turns (no corruption so far, at size 1)
​

[IBT]
Iroquois settler pairs, both of them, head back home, along with several swords.
Barbarian horses do not attack at all. All four move W, then N to arrive at a forest on the coast, 2E of Cherbourg.
We learn Currency, Construction in 14 turns.
ArcticGalley sinks one barb galley, but is sunk by a second barb galley.


02 0110 BC

Fortify units on the front line.
Two warriors that were barb bait move N, now 1SW of the barbs.
WorkerE and F irrigate the plain between Dijon and Marseilles.
First WorkerE (did not check the workers as good as I thought), 1NW of Marseilles, S and SE, to a plain to irrigate.
WorkerG, SW of Avignon, N to mine.
Settlers move northward.
WorkerH and C irrigate the plain SW of Tours.
WorkerI, 2NE of Besancon, moves SW to irrigate a plain.
EastwardHoGalley, now in full strength, heads towards Little France.
WestwardHoGalley moves SE, unloads WarriorYellow, and goes around the south of Littler France.
WorkerJ, near Amiens, S to BG.

The Revolution begins, with 8 turns of anarchy.
​

[IBT]
The four horseman attack Warrior Jacques, who defeats all four and promotes to veteran and then elite!

03 0090 BC

Many cities revolt.
eArcher now fully healed, send towards Cherbourg.
First WorkerE irrigates.
Settlers move north.
WarriorYellow W, clears some fog, sees nothing important.
WorkerJ mines the BG.
All but 2 or 3 of our citizens become geeks. We learn Construction in 5 turns at this rate (which will change next turn).
​

[IBT]
Order restored in the Empire.

04 0070 BC

Move some surplus warriors toward Cherbourg.
Settlers move northwards.
Second WorkerE becomes WorkerK. It and WorkerF move 1N to irrigate a BG to bring water to the north of France.
WorkerA moves SW, now 2 NE of Orleans, to irrigate a plain.
WorkerL, 1W of Grenoble, moves NE to irrigate a plain.
EastwardHoGalley heads east.
WorkerH builds a road.
WorkerC heads to Chartres to mine some grasslands.
WarriorYellow, on Littler France, SW looking for treasure, finds none.
WestwardHoGalley heads west, sees a horse on the south coast of Littler France.

Stop cities from starving. We learn Construction in 13 turns.
​

[IBT]
Cities revolt.
Egypt builds the Great Lighthouse in Alexandria.
English are building the Statue of Zeus.
English build the Statue of Zeus in London.

05 0050 BC

WorkerF and K irrigate a grassland.
WorkerB and D move to the large forest E of Orleans, to road and do something possibly productive without crossing a river.
WorkerL irrigates.
EastwardHoGalley moves east.
WestwardHoGalley moves west.
WarriorYellow, his duty done on Littler France, sees a way to ride with WestwardHoGalley on the way west, and moves W.

Hire more geeks. We learn Construction in 4 turns.
​

[IBT]
Save the game and post turn log.

And the save is >>HERE<<.

Littler France 50 BC

Cherbourg Area Showing New City Sites

@ Bucephalus: It looks like you will have several cities to build on your turnset. You may want to play around with a dot map on where to put them, keeping in mind what was said about growing to size 6, in one of Bede’s earlier posts.

 

[Tribute]

Well, look at that horse on the SE Island? What will we ever do?

And for the north. Are we ICSin' then irrigating everything for scientist farms?

And to Bucephalus, have fun in anarchy! And be careful about the starvation to riot with max scientists switch that was successfully used in CommandoBob's turnset.

 

[CommandoBob]

And to Bucephalus, have fun in anarchy!

Bucephalus will inherit the game in anarchy, but on that IBT it will switch to Republic. We revolted on turn 2, 8 turns of anarchy, so in 9 turns we become a republic, which will be turn 1 of his turns.

Bucephalus gets to disband units and deal with unit support, but I will try to make that easy for him.

What city should we disband our warriors in? Any thoughts?

I plan to finish these turns out tonight.

 

[Ansar]

I had an idea...that goes against TGOM's idea, but listen.
this island, Littler France, could be of some use, if you look at the dotmap I made, we can make the best of the somewhat useful islands.

Sugar and ponies and seafood, oh my. What do you guys, and of course , TGOM, think?

 

[CommandoBob]

Sugar and ponies and seafood, oh my. What do you guys, and of course , TGOM, think?

I'm open to the idea.

But this is Littler France. Little France is this larger island to the southeast.

 

[Ansar]

Ah, I didnt see the R, i will fix it.

EDIT: its fixed now.

 

[CommandoBob]

I had an idea...that goes against TGOM's idea, but listen.
Sugar and ponies and seafood, oh my. What do you guys, and of course , TGOM, think?

We might want to settle the pony just so no one else can get it.

Other than that, this would be a good spot for a bunch of geeks, if we could defend it properly. Wouldn't want two swords to capture four or five cities, even though that has only a remote-to-none chance of happening.