Emp. Players: Let's Try Deity!

[nerovats]

Since we appear to be out of room I favour changing the granaries to rax's and start to prepare for war now. Turn of science to save gold. Build vet warriors and upgrade them once we connect iron. The immediatly attack England. The longer we wait the stronger they get. After we take the English territory we can grow and explore more.
Maybe we should play 10 or 15 from now on.

 

[Norton II]

What error message did you get when you tried to open the save?

I think I meant that Bursa started the granary.

The message I got was "not a valid save file".

Since we appear to be out of room I favour changing the granaries to rax's and start to prepare for war now. Turn of science to save gold. Build vet warriors and upgrade them once we connect iron. The immediatly attack England. The longer we wait the stronger they get. After we take the English territory we can grow and explore more.
Maybe we should play 10 or 15 from now on.

Sounds good. We definitely shouldn't let England get too strong.

 

[Lkysam]

I can't open it up either.

 

[Empiremaker]

Is this better?

As for longterm strategy, we can still settle the jungle in the south, but still prepare for war. We need to explore.

 

[Norton II]

Is this better?

As for longterm strategy, we can still settle the jungle in the south, but still prepare for war. We need to explore.

That one works fine--thanks. And you're right; we do need to hurry past the Hurrians (sorry--couldn't resist ) and find out who and what lies southward. But we can't wait too long for war with England; they're just about out of useful land and may not put off attacking us for much longer.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I have a good save now. It has been my experience to have the first player play 20 and everyone else 10. Too many things start happening past 2500 BC and you lose the SG flavor. It is more like a series of solo games strung together.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Pre-flight – We haven’t been exploring southward. I have always felt that exploring and meeting other contacts is one of the keys to the early game. Liz knows alphabet, so we won’t be trading with her. It appears the settler factory is broken a bit.

Change Edrine and Bursa from a granary to a rax. A granary isn’t a good build if you aren’t going for a settler or worker factory. Change Iznik from a worker to a rax.

IBT – Alpha => Wheel Due in 12. I want to know if Liz has horses. Due in 9.
Istanbul: settler=.warrior

1600 – The settler factor is only ever going to do a settler every six turns, so it wasn’t broken. These barbs to the south are going to make thing difficult for our settler

1575 – Since I can’t get the settler to a city site, I will hold off on another settler.

1550 – Heading south to explore.

1525 – Need to solve this barb problem.

1500 – We have a lot of room to the south to expand. If we can get these barbs out of the way we have lot of land to expand in.

IBT – The Sumerians build the Pyramids.

1475 – Climb a mountain and what do we see?

That’s probably Cleo. What are the chances she already knows Liz. I’m think pretty good.

IBT – An Egyptian warrior steps forth.

1450 – Well this is a profitable exchange.

All our cash is an insult to Liz for a second tier tech.

The good news – we have horses between Bursa and Iznik. The bad news – Lizzy has them too.

I dial up writing next.

1425 – Cleo is sending another settler pair northward. Looks like that land may not last long. Kill a barb.

1400 – There are two English settler pairs headed south. We may need to set up some blocks. Where did these guys come from? I didn’t see them. Check Control P. Yep we have all animation off. That isn’t a good thing to do in the early game. You eye catches motion. Without the animation, you have to search the entire map every time.

1375 – Still exploring. Now there are three settler pairs. We can probably set up a block at the choke at the capitol.

After Action - Not exploring really set us back quite a bit. There is a lot to do. It wouldn’t surprise me if we are on a peninsula of quite a large continent or pangaea. I ordered up a curragh for exploring purposes. If my head was screwed on straight, I would have done that earlier.

Here is the south:

We need to explore in the direction of the two arrows.

Here’s the settlers:

You can see their track. Suggest a block as indicated. We need MP to keep the cities happy, so you’ll have to throw that together at the last minute. You should have the units, it will be tricky though.

If we had positioned Uskudar one north, we could have had a nice canal city. We have some wasted space Northeast of there.

Well we're off to a slow start. We can do a lot better, that includes me. Don't think I'm giving myself a pass here either. I made several silly mistakes that I am just realizing as I write this up. We just need to think things through. Think about city placement, play that settler block for all it is worth, and use those sliders.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/32851/Osman_of_the_Ottomans_1375_BC.SAV

 

[nerovats]

remarks about save:
we need to MM a lot more, several cities are inefficient.
Why a specialist in Izmit?
Why is lux higher then neccesary?
Uskudar should build the curagh Edrine a warrior (it's got a rax).
We should let Edrine use the wheat tile every other turn.
We need more warriors, let this settler finish, then only warriors. We can build about 12-13 vet warriors in 10 turns.
By then we'll have the iron connected with the current settler.
When we set science to 10% (or single scientist) we should also have about 400 gold. Enough to upgrade 6-7 wariors and start campaign.
I'd settle on the spot for canal. New settler south of iron on hill.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

How do you figure lux is higher than necessary. We are playing at Deity. If you don't have luxes and you don't have MPs, you have to spend money to keep your people happy.

We have a specialist because I didn't have an MP for that city, we don't have any luxes, and bumping the lux slider another 20% wasn't worth it.

Since you downloaded the save, how about fooling around with the slider and tell me exactly how I could have done better MMing the cities and setting the sliders. This is learning for me as well. It doesn't do me any good if you just throw out a statement that we need to MM a lot more. Tell me what I did wrong and tell he how it should have been done.

I used Edrine for the curragh because we'll get it faster there. I felt speed was more important. Like I said at the start of my turns, exploration is the second most important aspect of the early game (right behind settling).

I think we need at least two more settlers to grab some of that jungle. We aren't done with the settling phase yet.

 

[Norton II]

The specialist in Izmit isn't needed as long as the citizen is placed on one of the roaded tiles. Also, if the citizen in Istanbul is moved from the forest to the irrigated plains, we can lower the lux slider. Istanbul shouldn't be at size 6, though; it can start building a settler at 3 and pump it out when it hits 5. Also, it might have been better had the granary in Bursa been either finished or switched to a settler rather than a barracks; we may as well take full advantage of that flood plain wheat. I know that we need a stronger military, but we also need more cities. Speaking of which, here are some good locations for them:

Grey and black should probably be the priorities since they get us horses and iron respectively. SirBugsy's alerady got a settler in position for a canal city, so it should settle in place. Istanbul and Bursa can pump out settlers to fill in the rest; nothing but workers, barracks, and military units (to include a curragh or two) after that. We won't get much uncorrupted land south of the canal city.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Istanbul shouldn't be at size 6, though; it can start building a settler at 3 and pump it out when it hits 5. Also, it might have been better had the granary in Bursa been either finished or switched to a settler rather than a barracks; we may as well take full advantage of that flood plain wheat. I know that we need a stronger military, but we also need more cities.

I wish you guys would make up your mind. We need barracks! We need warriors to upgrade! Then you complain that I switched a granary to a barracks.

We were wasting a lot of shields by going from 3 to 5 on the settler factory. Plus we needed some military, so I allowed a barracks to be built in the capitol. It works much better going from 4 to 6 rather than from 3 to 5.

Also you need to explain your logic on the granary. First, why we needed a granary in Bursa? Second, why do we need to "take advantage of that flood plain wheat"? Let Bursa grow and pump out some military units. Population is power. We need to be able to control that population, but it is power.

Istanbul and Bursa can pump out settlers to fill in the rest; nothing but workers, barracks, and military units (to include a curragh or two) after that.

Why do we want settlers from Bursa? I guess we have a completely different way of looking at it. Bursa will be able to build three and eventually two turn swords.

We won't get much uncorrupted land south of the canal city.

Who cares about the corruption level right now. We need the land first. We need to explore second. The coruption level will be taken care of later.

 

[Norton II]

I wish you guys would make up your mind. We need barracks! We need warriors to upgrade! Then you complain that I switched a granary to a barracks.

Well, yes, we need warriors and barracks, but the whole point of settling Bursa near the wheat was to get a second settler factory. Given England's rapid rate of expansion, it may have been too late for a granary, but a settler or two would still be helpful. Looking at my earlier post, I was probably unclear on that; I thought Bursa should produce a settler or two and then switch to a rax.

We were wasting a lot of shields by going from 3 to 5 on the settler factory. Plus we needed some military, so I allowed a barracks to be built in the capitol. It works much better going from 4 to 6 rather than from 3 to 5.

How so? We can only pump one settler every 6 turns; have you set up some sort of combo factory, a settler/archer pump to help against the barbs, for example? If so, I stand corrected.

Also you need to explain your logic on the granary. First, why we needed a granary in Bursa? Second, why do we need to "take advantage of that flood plain wheat"? Let Bursa grow and pump out some military units. Population is power. We need to be able to control that population, but it is power.

While there's still good land to be claimed, a high-food city should focus on settlers and workers, don't you think? Again, it may have been too late for a granary to do much good, but it wasn't (and isn't) too late to benefit from a couple of settlers from Bursa.

Who cares about the corruption level right now. We need the land first. We need to explore second. The coruption level will be taken care of later.

Given that corruption will be very high three rings out from the capital (i.e. past the canal city), and given that there are no luxes or strategic resources in that area (except for a second source of iron which it might be useful to deny to Egypt), I think it would be more important to settle the lands closer to our capital and prepare for war with England. I agree with you that we need to explore more to the south, and curraghs (along with maybe an archer or two from Istanbul to take care of some barbs) will help with that.

@nerovats: It looks like we disagree about the priority of settlers vs. military. Why don't you think we should fill in the useful land before shifting entirely to military production? I'd like at least two more settlers: one for the iron, one for the horses. The current settler might be better off settling in place so as to give us both a canal and a choke point. We need more workers, too.

 

[Lkysam]

Speaking of war, how much gold does it take to upgrade a warrior? Were going to need at least a dozen to hurt the english, and we are probably going to want more soon if Cleo starts to get aggressive while we are distracted. We don't have much good land and we have NO luxuries which is very bad indeed. England has to be crippled or destroyed ASAP and that will get us good land and wines.

I think barracks were a good idea, but maybe we should build archers too depending on how costly the warrior upgrade is and how much money we can get before the war starts. We should turn off research, maybe not now but certainly after we get writing at the very latest, because our army is seriously weak right now and we are danger of being squished from two sides at once.

We shouldn't worry about expanding into the jungle and marsh to the south just yet. Those cities will be corrupt and unproductive and we have much better uses for the population and shields right now. If we take out england we can worry about grabbing that land later on.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

All good points. I guess I didn't read your earlier write up as well as I should have. I think an archer/settler combo from Istanbul is a better way to go.

Let's talk about dots. I agree the canal city would be a very good idea. Especially as a choke.

Blue dot - great
Black dot - Great
Red dot - let's wait and settle that one in the marsh - 2 SE from that location.

Gray and white dots - Those are going to have a lot of cultural pressure very soon. White dot should be settled after Newcastle is razed in the war. same with gray dot.

Green dot - That will be a military nightmare. Iznik is going to be hard enough to defend on the initial surge from Lizzy. I would hold off on this one and settle it 1N after the war.

 

[Norton II]

Speaking of war, how much gold does it take to upgrade a warrior?

60 gold per warrior, so we'd need 720 to upgrade a dozen. That's gonna take a while, so zero research after writing, as you suggested is a good idea.

Red dot - let's wait and settle that one in the marsh - 2 SE from that location.

Why not settle at red dot, then clear the marsh 3SE later and put another city there?

 

[nerovats]

: It looks like we disagree about the priority of settlers vs. military. Why don't you think we should fill in the useful land before shifting entirely to military production? I'd like at least two more settlers: one for the iron, one for the horses. The current settler might be better off settling in place so as to give us both a canal and a choke point. We need more workers, too.

England is still in expansion mode and is thus low on military. If we stike now we can overrun them quite easily. It takes 60 gold to upgrade a warrior to a sword, so in 10 turns we should have at least 6 swords which is enough to start. We will then need to follow with our workers building a road to the front so new swords can get there fast. In 30 turns England is gone we got great land, probably even more then we would have expanding on our own. England is almost out of land so will start claiming more. Our land that is.

Just finish current settler to claim iron the other can be settled on the spot. We can keep the english cities as there won't be a lot of culture yet, and we will whipe them out all together so there won't be any flips lateron.

What de we need for science, writing will let us trade for contacts, but gold is more important right now.

Whatever we decide we should follow one strat, at maximum. Building a some army and some settlers and explore won't work.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

I wouldn't plan on a 30 turn war. Remember, England will be building units at deity discount. Lizzy will be able to almost immediately shift to war time production. She will be able to throw a lot of units at us. just in production alone she can win. It will take a lot of good decisions and a lot of RNG luck on the battlefield to win quickly.

If you want to eliminate England, plan on a bit more time. In fact, she will more than likely have feudalism and pikes by the time the war is 30 turns old.

 

[nerovats]

I didn't mean a 30 year war, but 30 turns including buildup. Buildup takes 10-15, the attack and ignore the small cities go straight for Hastings->London->York. That will cripple the English enough to finish them off.

 

[Norton II]

What de we need for science, writing will let us trade for contacts, but gold is more important right now.

Actually, since this is Conquests, writing won't even let us do that; it'll only let us establish embassies, so it's even less useful than you thought. Embassies could be useful later on for tech stealing, but writing can probably wait. A little pointy-stick research might be more cost-effective at the moment.

I wouldn't plan on a 30 turn war. Remember, England will be building units at deity discount. Lizzy will be able to almost immediately shift to war time production. She will be able to throw a lot of units at us. just in production alone she can win. It will take a lot of good decisions and a lot of RNG luck on the battlefield to win quickly.

If you want to eliminate England, plan on a bit more time. In fact, she will more than likely have feudalism and pikes by the time the war is 30 turns old.

What about just taking 'em down a notch or two? Maybe we can raze a couple of cities, replace them with our own, and then get some techs for peace. After that, we could fill in the rest of the good land before England takes it, then either attack them again or weaken Egypt instead. Plenty of time to decide about that, though.

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Actually, since this is Conquests, writing won't even let us do that; it'll only let us establish embassies, so it's even less useful than you thought. Embassies could be useful later on for tech stealing, but writing can probably wait. A little pointy-stick research might be more cost-effective at the moment.
What about just taking 'em down a notch or two? Maybe we can raze a couple of cities, replace them with our own, and then get some techs for peace. After that, we could fill in the rest of the good land before England takes it, then either attack them again or weaken Egypt instead. Plenty of time to decide about that, though.

Exactly right. Pointy stick research and slowing Lizzy's power curve.

with embassies you can also get alliances, whivh we might need.