DU1 - "I didn't expect the Spanish inquisition!"

[Drugged_Unholy]

The start!

4000 bc (1) – I move the warrior SE, reveal a hut but no food resource. I follow grogs advice and gamble on a food resource. Thus Madrid gets founded, and….




We have rice!

I immediately start on meditation, moving the citizen onto the gold hill. We won’t grow, so I start a worker (we can return to another build when we decide to grow). The extra commerce increases the chances of us founding Buddhism.

3960 BC (2) – I decide not to risk the hut yet, so move the warrior South to explore

3920 (3)

3880 (4)

3840 (5)

3800 (6)

3760 (7)

3720 (8) – I spot a hut , its far enough away to risk popping

3680 (9) - ….




We now have a plan B (and nobody else can found it)

I decide to go for agriculture next so we can farm the rice. – I leave Madrid building worker but realise that this can’t go on for much longer.

The warrior pops the hut and ….





Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
This means we can have a shot at the oracle

3640 (10)

I switch Madrid to work the rice – it means agriculture will take 2 turns longer, but the worker will finish faster.

3600 (11)

3560 (12) explored the east peninsular to us – Its full of resources. Spot the first lion.

3520 (13)

3480 (14)

3440 (15)

IBT – lion attacks, loses but we’re badly wounded.

3400 (16)

3360 (17)

3320 (18) discover agriculture. Decide to make a beeline for bronze working – we can then chop an oracle and take theology as the free tech

3280 (19) our worker finishes, set Madrid to build warrior.
Worker heads to the rice.

3240 (20) Worker starts a farm

Here is the map so far.




Here is the save

 

[Thyrwyn]

Great turnset Drugged_Unholy!

We need a ruling though: Are we allowed to research Techs that will cause us to found a new religion?

 

[Grogs]

Nice start! And rice no less. Everything is timed out nicely as well. You should hit mining the same turn the worker finishes farming the rice, so he can immediately move over to the gold and get the commerce rolling in.

- Madrid should hit Level 3 culture next turn and seal off the peninsula. I recommend we explore west as soon as possible and build in that direction first. With so much jungle on the peninsula, we won't be able to improve most of the tiles until we get IW. If copper/iron/horses shows up in the east, we can modify that.

- We'll have to pay close attention to the oracle timing. Too early and we won't have the prerequisite techs. Too late and we'll miss it.

- We'll pop the goody hut next turn when Madrid's culture expands. If I get a tech, I tend to get the tech I'm currently researching more often than not, which is really annoying when I'm one turn from finishing it. It might be a good idea to set research to something expensive (Animal Husbandry) for the first turn, then change it back to mining. This won't change the time it takes for us to mine the gold.

-How many turns per player? 20 for the first and 10 after that?

 

[Dimy]

I think for the first round 20 would do, not much happens during the Ancient age... So... I suppose I'm up then. I'll finish my report on another SG I'm playing then do my turns. By the way, I don't think we should adopt Christianity as our state religion... it comes too late and by then all other AI's will have a religion already which basicly means we will never have an ally. Now that we have Buddhism I suggest we adopt it as our state religion and work from there. We can try to convert some religionless civs...or at least one of them.

**EDIT** Ah well...we might try to get to Theology with the Oracle, then we should have it pretty soon. **EDIT**

 

[Dimy]

Turn 1 3200 BC:
Our borders expand… and:



We pop Hunting! We’re quite lucky with popping the huts so far…

Turn 5 3040 BC:
Mining Discovered, Bronze Working due in 14 turns. Farm finished on the Rice spot, will now mine the Gold.

Turn 6 3000 BC:
Madrid grows to size 2, I check if it’s worth working the Gold rather than Forest, but better to stick with the Forest. If we work the Forest the City will grow to size 3 in 6 turns while Bronze Working is due in 13 turns, if we work the Gold, the city will grow in 12 turns and Bronze Working is only reduced by 2 turns. I decide it’s better to wait till we reach size 3, the Gold should be mined by then as well.



IBT:
Warrior gets attacked by Panthers, but we win… I give him Woodsman I promotion…hoping for another Woodsman promotion soon so we get faster movement speed through forests.

Turn 7 2960 BC:
Warrior takes a 3 turns rest to heal from his wounds.

Turn 9 2880 BC:
Warrior finished in Madrid, starting Barracks. Maybe I switch later, but for now I add some hammers to the Barracks which we need anyway.

Turn 12 2760 BC:


Madrid is now size 3, I’m working the Gold Mine now… Bronze Working drops from 7 turns to only 4 turns.

Turn 14 2680 BC:


Our Warrior was attacked again..this time by Lions. We were on a Jungle Hill so no way the Lions could have killed our Woodsman I Warrior.

 

[Dimy]

Turn 15 2640 BC:
[I saved a picture of this, but for some reason it's not in my screenshots folder...happens a lot with screenshots from the Diplomacy screen...]

We meet Tokugawa of the Japanese Empire!

Turn 16 2600 BC:
Bronze Working is discovered! There’s 4 techs we need to get to Theology, so if we want to use the Oracle to get Theology, we must research these 4 techs first… those are: Writing, Masonry, Polytheism and Monotheism. I’m going for Writing first so we can build Libraries. I queue up Masonry next as we don’t want to risk getting Hinduism or Judaism…so hopefully the AI will have discovered those by then. As we don’t have Anarchy I adopt Slavery… maybe we use it…maybe we won’t.
As I want the city to grow again I stop working the Gold Mine and work a grassland forest instead. Madrid will grow to size 4 in 5 turns… as soon as it hits size 4 I think we should build a Settler/Warrior so we can find a 2nd city before building the Oracle.

Turn 17 2560 BC:
A jungle grows near Madrid…

Turn 18 2520 BC:
Hinduism is found in a distant land! It’s not Japan as we have a clear few of Kyoto and it’s not a holy city.



Turn 20 2440 BC:
Nothing happens in the final turns.
We might want to build our 2nd city all the way to the west near the Elephants…if only to deny Tokugawa the space. There’s a rather big desert west of us…but in the south west some nice grassland. I really suggest to settle there first. Madrid will grow to size 4 the next turn, so is started building a Warrior and queued up a Settler after. The Barracks is only a few turns from completion so we could finish that before starting the Oracle…or not. You decide!

 

[Meatbuster]

The Oracle will be chopped anyway, we can always finish the barracks. Also, since we quickly got Priesthood for free I don't think anyone else will go for the Oracle anytime soon.

Since we have Hunting might as well have a scout built somewhere.

Also we did not get any gold from any huts (so far) so while building next to Japan would be a good idea it might cause use to do less research for a while. But the Elephants would be excellent for our jihads.

How soon should we get Calendar? I see a lot of nice stuff out there...

Finally, if Buddhism spreads to Tokugawa automatically...

 

[Grogs]

We might want to build our 2nd city all the way to the west near the Elephants…if only to deny Tokugawa the space. There’s a rather big desert west of us...

That looks like a pretty good spot to me as well. Here's a quick dotmap of the west I sketched out:



Red would get us sugar and ivory, blue cattle and silk, and yellow fish and bananas. If our warrior survives his encounter with the lion next turn (black oval) we'll want to see what's in the purple oval (circled on the minimap.)

Unless there's some copper in the fog to our NW, we may need to think about picking up some better defensive techs soon, before the human barbs start showing up. We could take the quick solution and just grab archery, grab Iron Working and see if there is iron nearby, or get animal husbandry+the wheel for chariots (if we have horses.) One way or the other, we're going to need The Wheel soon to connect our cities together/connect resources. Iron Working isn't as critical, but we'll need it to improve several of the tiles around the red/blue city locations.

 

[Ragnoff]

I like the dotmap, and think there is no reason to move red dot west. i doubt we would pick up that food reasourse in any case do to cultualr preasure by Japan. If we want red dot, it will HAVE to be the first city we found.

As we started with fishing, founding coastal cities makes sense.

 

[Drugged_Unholy]

I like the map as well, but clearly we're racing against time for red dot.

If Japan gets there first we'd better hope he founds his own religion soon so we can declare on him to steal his ivory. I also suggest we put a couple of warriors to the east to stop barb cities forming as we'll eventually want to settle there as well.

 

[Meatbuster]

We don't have to wait for Toku to get his own faith: we have buddhism, remember? Organized Religion, send him a missionary...

Oh yeah, Christianity is supposed to be our faith so maybe we shouldn't do that.

 

[Grogs]

I like the map as well, but clearly we're racing against time for red dot.

If Japan gets there first we'd better hope he founds his own religion soon so we can declare on him to steal his ivory. I also suggest we put a couple of warriors to the east to stop barb cities forming as we'll eventually want to settle there as well.

I doubt Toku will found anything since he doesn't start with mysticism. Most likely, someone else will found Hinduism/Judaism and spread it to him, but we'll see. Frankly, I'm surprised nobody has There are a couple of nice forest/hill or jungle/hill tiles we can fortify a warrior on in the eastern peninsula. One warrior can can probably see ~90% of the land from one of these tiles. Even a 0xp warrior probably has ~75% chance of winning against an attacking archer on one of those tiles. Once we're in a little better defensive position, I wouldn't mind a barb city so much, but right now I agree that it's not such a good idea.

Here's a quick suggestions for the next player (Thyrwyn) I came up with looking at the save:

Turn 0: Rearrange the tiles so that Madrid is working rice+farmed plains+gold hill. Madrid will still grow next turn and writing will drop to 6 turns.
Turn 1: Assign the new citizen to the 2nd gold hill. We'll be stagnant for now, but I don't think extra population will make much difference in the short run. Move the worker SE onto the forest/grassland tile.
Turn 2: begin chop on the forest/grass tile. -> we'll need to farm this one soon anyway.

If we finish our current warrior and then move to the barracks, the chop will let us build a 4xp warrior the turn after the barracks finishes, and I think some hammers will roll into the next production as well. That should give us enough military (for now) to protect our 2nd city.

I've got a term end this morning, so after that's over I'll have time to look at the save a little more closely.

 

[Dimy]

I also suggest we put a couple of warriors to the east to stop barb cities forming as we'll eventually want to settle there as well.

I kinda like barbs.... they're good to give XP to your units...and if they find a city even better...saves us the trouble from buiding a settler . Assuming the build the city on a good spot of course...

 

[Thyrwyn]

Got it; will play tonight. I am at work now - with no access to the actual save, so these thoughts are very preliminary:

Since Judaism has not been founded, are we allowed to research Monotheism? If we can't ( and I am inclined to say that we cannot) then any talk of building the Oracle to get Theology is moot. If we do not build the Oracle soon, we will not build it. I would rather build it, get the best tech we can, and go from there. After Writing, we are three techs away from being able to complete the Oracle/Theology gambit. On the other hand, if we build a temple then the Oracle, we can assign Priest, get 5 GPP/turn and produce our first Prophet in @20 turns - we can then save him until we have researched Monotheism and use him to snag Theology.

That will give us time to research the other techs we desperately need.

If we do decide that we cannot research Monotheism until Judaism has appeared, we can always research it to within 3 turns or so and the switch to something else. That way when Judaism does appear, we can switch back to Mono, complete it and then use Great Prophet to discover Theology.

I cannot play until tonight, so we have all day to discuss strategy, but here is my immediate plan: After growth to size 4, Madrid will work: Center tile (2f, 1h, 1c) Rice (4f); 2 Gold (6h, 14c); Farmed Plains (2f,1h,1c). Totals: 8 food (stagnant), 8h, 16c (24 with the +8c from Palace). After the Warrior finishes, I will start producing a Worker. Should take 4 turns with chop. The two workers will then chop the Temple>Oracle.

The extra 15c a turn will allow us to research more than twice as fast as we do now. The two workers will allow us to chop the Oracle twice as fast (no more than 10 turns). If wandering warrior survives, I will recall him and replace with a Scout; this will reduce by one the number of defenders we need to build and allow us to explore faster.

Thoughts?

 

[Drugged_Unholy]

Since Judaism has not been founded, are we allowed to research Monotheism? If we can't ( and I am inclined to say that we cannot)

I agree, although I'd also say we can start researching it - just not completing it until Judaism is founded. If others disagree fair enough.

if we build a temple then the Oracle, we can assign Priest, get 5 GPP/turn and produce our first Prophet in @20 turns - we can then save him until we have researched Monotheism and use him to snag Theology.

That would involve building a religious building before we know which our official religion is. As I don't think it is possible to destroy/sell buildings later on this could mean having a heathen religion, which I think goes against the spirit of this game. If I'm outvoted fair enough.

I cannot play until tonight, so we have all day to discuss strategy, but here is my immediate plan: After growth to size 4, Madrid will work: Center tile (2f, 1h, 1c) Rice (4f); 2 Gold (6h, 14c); Farmed Plains (2f,1h,1c). Totals: 8 food (stagnant), 8h, 16c (24 with the +8c from Palace). After the Warrior finishes, I will start producing a Worker. Should take 4 turns with chop. The two workers will then chop the Temple>Oracle.

Sounds fine. I suggest leaving a few grassland forrests though as with lumbermills/railroads they can be very productive squares.

 

[Dimy]

There's still a couple of techs to research before we get to Monotheism... even if Monotheism hasn't been founded by another AI yet, just start researching it... if it's still not researched by an AI by the time we will have Monotheism in 1 turn, you can always swap to another tech untill the AI does have Monotheism...then swap back for 1 turn. Same for the Oracle... just start building it, if we need to delay it because we dont have Monotheism yet, just start building something else... the hammers are saved anyway! As are research beakers for techs...

 

[Meatbuster]

Great plan, Dimy.

Sounds like our chances are very good.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Invested hammers are saved, but not indefinitely: they decay with every other build that is placed in front them. I do not know the exact rate (hearsay places it between 15-20%), but if we build most of the Oracle, then end up building 6 other units/buildings before someone else gets around to discovering monotheism we will lose most of the hammers we have invested. Also, there is the concern that someone else may build teh Oracle in the meantime.

Research does not decay, so there is no problem there. Since #1 goal of the variant is to get to Theology first, I will get us as close as we can: Masonry and Polytheism are next.

The point about the 'alien' temple is well taken, and I agree that we should not build it. I will build settlers and military after the worker: we need to keep our research up and until we get Pottery, growth in Madrid will not help that significantly. we need to grab land now, or get stuck on our little peninsula.

I see no reason to chop until we push for the Oracle.

 

[Meatbuster]

Okay then, delay chop till Oracle starts after Judaism founded elsewhere. I didn't know about stored hammer decay.

 

[Dimy]

Stored hammers don't decay that quickly, I doubt the AI will be that slow discovering Monotheism.