Emperor SG

[Zargon]

Do we have a second warrior yet? We will need one to go with the settler. Could build a scout also and bring the initial warrior back to garrison the capital.

I think high priority techs are mysticism, pottery, and IW, probably in that order. Mysticism so we can chop a monument in the 2nd city, pottery so we can build a granary in the capital and start slaving our capital. We have 3 food resources and a high happy cap. Let's put em to work. Also, pottery will let us cottage rivers. IW, so that we can clear jungle and actually make use of the land around us. I really want the great lighthouse, but I think those 3 techs are too important to getting our empire going to delay.

I still think the 2nd city should go north, 1E of the spices. Going for the copper down south is too far for my tastes for a 2nd city. 1E of the spices will have pigs, 2 or 3 flood plains, and 2 hills. Although, I'd check to see if there's seafood to be had by settling on the spices, and consider doing that instead. Spices is only an average tile to work, anyways.

Horses might change the city placement outlook though. Having chariots would give us a solid defense against barbs for a very long time.

 

[MrFelony]

I agree about the bronze city, that's in part why I want IW up sooner as opposed to later. we have a 2nd warrior who has started off to explore the N/NE (just one turn). we have about 30 of production to be used on this up coming turn and it queued to be put into a settler.

 

[dl123654]

Turn 0:
Not sure where that warrior is going? send him to the city site, 1E of spices which I agree to

...

Turn 5:
AH done, no horses in sight
Start pottery, due in 5
Warrior arrives, no seafood, 1E is still best

Turn 6:

IBT:
Bear wins 25.7% battle agianst our northern warrior who was behind a river and in jungle

Turn 7:

Turn 8:
Settler done, 1 turn warrior

Turn 9:
Warrior done, 3 turn warrior

Turn 10:
Pottery done, IW started

Turn 11:
Utica founded on planned spot, set for a warrior

Turn 12:
Capital finishes warrior, starts worker due in 4

Notes:
Quiet turnset other then the bear attack

Save

 

[Zargon]

I took a look, and it looks like I won't get killed this time, and we don't have our backs against the wall yet.

I'm thinking sailing, then masonry, then mysticism, then writing. Utica will actually be ok for a while without a border pop, and this will let us beeline the great lighthouse, which I think will be good on this map. I'll probably finish the worker in the capital, then build a granary, then beat a settler out of the capital and build another worker at some point before starting up the great lighthouse. With any luck, our 3rd city can claim iron, and we can build some real military.

I'll play in a few hours, so get your comments in now.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Mysticism then Masonry might be a better order as that will give us a discount on Masonry, that should still let masonry finish before you finish you current build order.

I can't look at the save and there's no recent pictures so I can't comment too much on the plan but it sounds good from where I'm sitting.

As we'll be settling a lot of coastal cities what do you guys think about Colossus?

 

[MrFelony]

I'm a lil tipsy right now so i can't really give great advice about what to do, but the myst>masonry might be a good idea. the warrior was going to explore better the areas for our settler to be explored.

 

[Zargon]

turn 1: worker finished, and border pop for Carthage. Worker sent to build a mine on Utica's grassland hill that Carthage's border pop got.

turn 2: random event - Herbalists using our citizens as test subjects:
1 happy in all cities for 10 turns
-1 happy temporarily, 20% chance of -1 pop in all cities, 35% chance of +1 health in all cities.
-2 happy temporarily, 50% chance of -1 pop in all cities, 90% chance of +2 health in all cities.
I took the most aggressive option, knowing the -2 happy wouldn't nail me immediately, and figured it would go away soon. Utica was still 1 pop, and Carthage was growing fast, so I figured the pop down risk was worth it. I got both the penalty and the bonus. I'm hoping the bonus will be for all our future cities too.

Ew, it's a whipping penalty, so it'll last 20 turns... plus it'll screw with my plans to beat settlers out of Carthage.

turn 4: GW BINAFAL

turn 5: swapped Carthage from granary to worker. We are at size 5 and the happy cap until some whipping penalty wears off, and I'm not going to whip more unhappiness on top of the current penalty.

rest of turns: Started building up our worker force that will be required to hack down jungles. We shouldn't need any more workers for a good long while after the last two being built.

Worker notes: There's a worker sitting on the spices east of Utica. Chop the jungle and cottage the sqaure. I think that will yeild 3/0/4.
Finish the road to Utica through that forest being roaded and the pigs in Utica.
Both Carthage and Utica need a second mine at some point, but it's not critical.

Carthage build order: Finish the worker, build a warrior or something, and let Carthage grow to size 7 (which will be 1 unhappiness), then build a settler for one turn, then whip it the following for 3-4 pop. That will put us at around 13-15 turns of whipping unhappiness, which will be no problem.

I marked what I feel is the best spot for the 3rd city. I also marked a possible 4th city, claiming horses and marble, but it's a bit far away. And the cottage heaven, with something like 15 grassland tiles, Ivory & two grassland hills for a bit of production, and sugar we could either cottage to 3/0/3, or farm to 4/0/1 to make it grow a bit faster. I like this spot for the 4th city if we decide the marble/horses are too far away, or if they get taken in the meantime.

photobucket resizes my 1920x1200 screenshots into unreadability, so I'll just keep attaching them.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

If we're going for the Great lighthouse I think a coastal city for the third might be best, but that depends on barb activity. I take it warriors are still our best unit.

Does anybody have an idea of when the GL usually gets built by the AI?

Edit. I got it. will play and report in 24 hours

 

[Zargon]

Did more thinking.

We definitely need our 3rd city to claim the iron. If the barbs show up with a single axeman, our entire civilization will fall.

I think the big question right now is how much do we gamble on the barbs playing nice. One option would be to switch to archery on the inherited turn, and put out a few archers asap. Then if a barb axeman shows up, we might get pillaged, but we won't die.

The other conservative option would be to settle 1NW of the iron instead of 2N. That will give us iron in the 1st ring, and let us start building axemen of our own in about.... 8-10 turns minimum. (3 turns to build the worker, 2 turns to build a warrior - optional, 2 turns to whip the settler, 1 turn travel, 2 turns to build the mine)

If we want to put the 3rd city in the 2nd ring of iron, add about 13 turns to that (3 to chop/build the monument, 10 to border pop).

Unless we are sure barb axemen don't come this early, I'd say we need to take one of the safer routes, I'd lean towards archery. I did see a barb archer early in my turn set, if that helps to determine how far away barb axemen are.

 

[MrFelony]

I did some dot mapping. I'm a gambler when it comes to civ. I think we should forget building wonders and focus more on REXing. the cities that i'd probably like to get up are the gold and hors cities. chariots are all we need to defend ourselves from barbs, and these cities block off the expansion of the AI as well as denies them from very good resources. we wont really need iron since we have ivory. I say we beeline for construction and whip ourselves a nice little army of elephants/cats and take the iron city from pacal. we can make a couple of warriors to run fog busting in the south. as for defense, if you guys are feeling less lucky than I am (and considering out last game i can see why lol), we can research archery for the momentary boost in defense. I also think the pink dot in the southern picture is a better in regards to city placement. 2 less desert tiles and not too much overlap with the other 2 cities. We'll have about 5 workers, and after they finish, i think production should change to 2 settlers and we go nab the gold and horse sites (after another warrior is produced). we'll be facing warriors and archers mostly for a while. and we'll have chariots long before we'll see any axemen. now the only thing that would slow us down is if we are realy unlucky and get a barbarian uprising event, which are pretty rare. Also, to help with our economy, I would just sleep the settler on the spot for the horse city with a warrior defending him until we get the gold city running at least one or both gold mines. right now i think south is the wrong direction for us to be expanding since we have all game to do that

Spoiler :

 

[Zargon]

The blue dot wouldn't be bad for a future city, if it's still available. The gold can be fed by the pigs if the rice gets stolen, and it probably will. Pericles is creative, which is part of the reason I'm thinking we don't challenge him hard with a border war. I've got no problem with planning on taking his things the old fashioned way, though - at stickpoint.

I agree that claiming horses next will also provide a viable defense against barbs, but we run into the same time issues as with iron in the second ring. It would also provide a better city, but further away.

Either way would work.

 

[MrFelony]

BTW the teal dot NW of the gold city is where i woudl bet pericles will try to plop a settler. I think we should make a run for writing soon (maybe not this next round), so we can put a library in the gold city as well as a few others to run some scientists, and teh +2 would really help out our cities boardering the AI

 

[50_dollar_bag]

I've played but didn't see your posts.
I got a bit greedy and played 17 turns I think, sorry was focused on getting the GL which we did.


Brief summary (I'm posting at my mother's on Dial up )
finished workers and sent them all to Carthage to prechop the hill forests.
started a light house in Carthage, invested 28 hammers then switched to Settler at size 7 (we got an the bandits event in our corn farm which I just let us lose 5 food rather than pay gold, it actually helped to get our growth just right) built settler for 1 turn then whipped, then whipped the lighthouse, took us down to 2 pop with 51 hammers overflow. We grew to size five in 4 turns where I stagnated and eventually starved the city to work the 4 mines plus the river ivory and chopped about 4 forests. With 2 turns(29 hammers)left on the GL I chopped a plains forest just outside the BFC for 16 hammers and shaved a turn off to finish it in style.
Carthage can now grow again. I put it on a monument but I think settlers are more important.
Settled the 3rd city as Zargon indicated, but I think it may have been better 1 tile W, but it loses 2 hills :shrug: It's building a monument.
Utica had a granary whipped then a hand built monument, it's now size 6 and will be happy capped at 7.
Our exploring warrior got killed early on some not much more info gained.
Definately think the horses/ivory spot should be next, if we can keep the other 2 away from Ivory it would make things a lot easier in the future.
1 turn left on archery, though barb activity has been next to nothing.

We have open borders with Pacal.

I think expanding West to block the other AIs then spamming coastal cities around the horn of Africa should be the next goal.

 

[Zargon]

Mcfelony, you're up.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Not without the save he's not.
I could have sworn I attached it the first time.

 

[MrFelony]

heh alright, i got it. i really dont like the iron cities location, but there's no turning back and it at least grabs us iron. gj on finishing the GL pretty quick. I'm pretty sure Gold city is no longer an option, but we should be able to still grab horse city. I think the goal right now is to start cottaging everything and grab the horse and gold cities if possible, if not then just get the settlers out to be prepared to form that wall.

so my over arching aim for this round will be to finish expanding horizontally as much as our economy will allow, and to cottage spam since we will most likely not get the benefit of the gold city to help support our REXing. Also, i think we need to build a library or two to run some scientists to help out our economy from all this expansion.

 

[Zargon]

Yeah, looking back, claiming iron by settling on the sugar would have been better, (that was actually my first impression for where to put the city) but at least it's not a game breaker.

The nice part about being financial is that the cottage city in the middle can start putting out solid commerce very fast. Farm the sugar for slightly faster growth, and then cottage the river for instant 2/0/3 tiles. I figure settling that city and one on the river north of that will keep our REX going for a long time.

I think the biggest problem is making sure our neighbors don't get any bright ideas about doing a land grab. The power graph is looking pretty bad - we are sitting at about 50% of what Pericles is at. We should probably build several archers to boost that a bit.

 

[MrFelony]

if we manage relations correctly i don't think we have much to worry about. Though I've never been much of an army builder until i'm gearing up to go to war. Though that may be my weak point. I'll get around to playing the game tonight or tomorrow and leave some time for more comments

 

[Zargon]

Managing relations is important, but if we are too weak, even our friends can become opportunistic. If we can get up to around 70%, we should be pretty safe.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

We can whip the monument in Hadrumetum in 6 turns, then 10 turns for a border pop and between 2-6 turns to hook up the iron if we time the completion of the road and border pop correctly.

How about some resource trades, even giving our fish/clams away, it would help to get us the 'supplied us with resources' bonus a bit earlier. I don't think we should stay in open borders for too long with Pacal, so OB bonus is out. I think Pacal and Pericles are ok neighbours, let's be thankful we don't have Monty or Shaka.

Would it be worth it to build walls for the power boost and to eventually build castles? Normally I give castles a miss but we'll have a lot of coastal cities and stone eventually.