EVIE1 - 1 on 1 TDG

[denyd]

Just a couple of points not yet mentioned.

1. Check out the mini-map for your location to give a hint whether to go N or S when exploring.

2. After getting some $$ in the bank switching max science is probably a good idea.

A question: Why wouldn't Ceremonial Burial be a good starting tech choice? I've found past trading success in the CB-Mysticism-Poly path.

 

[mad-bax]

denyd: I have had many successes myself following that path. However, in this case, and only IMHO if you set out at max research at regent with the express intention of out-researching the AI, that path leads to Monarchy, with no way to get Republic.

So now we are in to the Monarchy vs Republic debate which is complicated. Too complicated IMO for this thread. Please try to appreciate that I am not trying to teach anyone how to play every possible situation at deity. I am merely trying to accelerate one person from chieftain all the way up to the dizzy heights of regent.

The reason I chose the alpha, writing, (mm or lit) republic path is that there are a number of solid ways of playing that way, the three most common being the 40 turn gambit to writing, the 40 turn gambit to literature and the max research to map making.

I cannot possibly adequately cover every possibility. But you were right to bring it up. Thanks for that.

 

[denyd]

MB: Thanks for the answer. I'm following this thread in hopes of getting what I missed by starting out at monarch and struggling through 4-5 months of GOTM losses.

There's really no right path to winning this game (why it's so good). Thanks for the insight.

 

[Superevie]

Hey hey hey!

I did my next ten turns!

Log:

Turn 11: Changed production to scout. Completed scout #2 and moved it NW 1. Started Granary. Moved worker SE1. Moved warrior NE 5. Scout #1 N 1.

Turn 12: Found Rome! Moved Scout #1 W 1. Moved worker SE to cattle square. Rome busts in and asks for Pottery and 48 gold for warrior code. Warrior code sounds sweet, but 48 gold is my entire treasury. I got the price down to Pottery and 41 gold for the Code. At first, Caeser was annoyed, but now he's cautious.

Turn 13: Moved scout #2 SW 1. Started irrigating square with worker. Moved scout #1 NW 1.

Turn 14: Scout #2 SW 1. Scout #1 NW 1.

Turn 15: Scout #2 S 1. Scout #1 N 1. Fortified warrior on moscow.

Turn 16: Moved scout #2 SW 1. Moved scout #1 N 1.

Turn 17: Move scout #1 N 1. Irrigation complete. Starting road on same square. Moved scout #2 W 1.

Turn 18: Scout #2 W 1. Pops goody hut. We learned the wheel! Yay! [dance] Scout #1 goes N1.

Turn 19: Scout #1 goes N 1. Scout #2 goes E 1.

Turn 20: Scout #2 E 1. Road done! Move worker N 1. Scout #1 goes Ne 1. Got a settler from goody hut.

Here's my dilemma: The settler has horses within its border if I settle, but this area is very far away from capital. Should I move the settler closer to the capital to decrease corruption and for connection purposes, or settle where I am, later build settlers to surround this city and build a forbidden palace here? I'm lean towards number 2.

Thanks!

Superevie

 

[mad-bax]

3550BC: Pre-turn
Veto spearman for scout, wasting 1 shield.
Increase Science rate to 100%. Alphabet now due in 19 turns

IBT:
Moscow Scout - Granary
Borders expand.

3500BC:
Scout 2 explores 2SE, revealing wheat on river.
Worker completes road, starts journey to cattle.
warrior sent back to Moscow for barb protection mainly.
Scout 1 North sees red borders.
At this time the D button is not available. However if you press Shift-D you get to meet your contact one turn earlier.
Meet Caesar of Rome. He is annoyed (as usual). He has both alphabet and warrior code.
Also he has 35g. This implies that he has been researching at 100%, has no contacts, and has dispersed a barb camp. Can't be sure that this is true, but it seems likely. Evie: How can I make this guess?
I could hold off trading, but decide to get his techs quickly to maximise benefit from further huts.
So...
I trade his alphabet + WC for pottery + masonry + 18g. If I considered Caesar a risk I could have bought the techs on a gpt basis. This would mean that if he did declare war I would'nt have to finish paying, it would also (according to some people) mean he would be less likely to declare war. In this case I didn't because the gpt rate he demanded would slow my research, and I don't want to be tied to a 20 turn deal at the moment. Why would I not want a 20 turn deal? And another question. Why on earth would I consider holding off trading?
Caesar is now cautious.
Research writing in 27 turns (100%)

3450BC:
Scout 1 NW then W, Rome is at size 2 and its best defender is a regular warrior.
Scout 2 - 2E

3400BC:
Worker irrigates cattle.
Scout 2 - E then SE
Scout 1 - 2NW

3350BC:
Scout 2 - S and pops hut for the wheel, then S again.
Scout 1 - NW
We have a "gettable" source of horses.

3300BC:
Scout 1 N
Scout 2 SW
Warrior arrives back in Moscow and fortifies.

3250BC:
Scout 2 - 2W
Scout 1 - NE

3200BC:
Scout 1 N
Worker road cattle
Scout 2 W revealing spices.
Moscow will grow next turn.
For the gallery, there is a MM opportunity here as Moscow only needs 1 food to fill the box.
I could take the citizen off the cattle and put him on the ivory for this one turn to gain an extra shield and an extra gold piece. However, I feel that this kind of MM is beyond the scope of this TDG. So I don't do it.

3150BC:
Scout 2 - SW, W
Scout 1 - 2N

3100BC:
Scout 1 - N, NW - pops hut for maps, revealing magenta border. I wonder who that could be?
Scout 2 - NW

3050BC:
Scout 2 - W, SW (wheat)
The worker finishes his road, and we need to put him on another tile. This city site is quite tricky for prioritising which tiles to work in which order. A balance must be struck between working the tiles with the highest raw power, and looking ahead to where our next couple of cities will be placed.
The ivory is 4 turns away.
2 of the BG's are 3 turns away
1 BG is on an adjacent tile but in the opposite direction to where we are likely to expand.
Other possibilities include improving a tile that will be in our next cities radius.
Another difficulty is that the city is hemmed in with mountains and hills. I really don't want to spend turns roading this terrain just to establish a trade network.
For these reasons, I am going to send the worker to what I consider to be the wrong tile on purpose, pending a discussion about city placement.
Worker W
Scout 1 can see magenta borders, and a hut. He can reach either in 2 turns. Which way should he go? I choose to head for the magenta borders. Why?
Scout 1 2N

3000BC: (Turn 11, but who cares?)
Scout 2 - N, W revealing a possible land bridge (choke). Could be strategically important.
Worker mine.
Scout 1 NW, N.
Meet Polite Joan D'arc of the French.
She has 10g to her name, she is 5 techs behind, and has no contacts as far as I can tell. To quote an SG colleague of mine. "Broke and stupid is a bad way to go through history". She is as dead as a doornail. She just doesn't know it yet.
She is also researching flat out. How can I possibly make that guess?
Ceasar OTOH still has no new techs, and still has 53g. (the 35g he had already + the 18g we gave him). What does that tell you, apart from the fact that the regent AI can't research their way out of a wet paper bag?
Surprisingly, neither France or Italy have found it necessary to build any new cities. However, although I haven't seen a Roman settler, I know there is one wandering around somewhere. How?
Tip: Look at the screenshot.

The last point I need to make is this. Since Moscow grew to size three, I have allowed the governor to place the new citizen on the Ivory/forest tile, which gives 2 shields and 2 commerce, but only one food. This means that Moscow is only making 3 food surplus. Is the governor doing a good job here? More importantly, what will happen if we allow the governor to do this once our settler factory is up and running? If you can answer that question then you can safely put your newbie badge in the trash.

 

[mad-bax]

There is more detail in the turnlog than you need, particularly the trading. I can't pretend to be a competent trader, I'm not. The reason I include the detail is that I wanted to draw to your attention to the possibility that you can infer stuff about your opponents from what seems to be completely trivial and unimportant information.
I'm not saying that I am always right, but I have some confidence in my guesses.

Trading is an important skill. At regent level it is perfectly possible to launch a space ship first without ever building a library or university or ever putting a single gold piece into research. Trading well is more efficient than doing the donkey work yourself.

I would recommend you look at <<this>> thread and have a go at the exercise. I think I posted my attempt in there somewhere, so you can compare.

Please make an attempt at the questions I put to you in the turnlog. Many of them are more advanced, and require more understanding than you need right now. But I would like you to start getting a feel for the questions that you can ask on each turn in order to play more accurately. So the answers are not as important as the thought process I would like you to follow in order to arrive at an answer.

Now I just have to download your save to see how you got on. Though I have to say, from your turnlog it looks like you did better than me

 

[mad-bax]

One small administrative point. Could you please change the filename once in a while. I would recommend evie-XXXXYY.sav

Replace XXXX with the last date in the game of the save
Replace YY with Either AD or BC

Thanks

If you are still having problems posting screenshots read <<this>> thread.

If you have a fancy graphics package like Paint shop pro or photoshop then you should resize your images to 800x600 and then use the sharpen command. You must save the image as a jpg or the server won't accept the file.

You're going to have to do a dot map soon. So I'd have a little practice if I were you.

 

[mad-bax]

Well, let me first congratulate you on your impeccable play. This can't be the same player who had 2 workers at 1100AD, vitually no roads and was barely out of the Ancient Age surely?

So ....

Turn 11.
Changing production to scout is IMO the very best move you could make.
Moving the warrior back to the city
Sending the Scout north
Moving the worker onto the cattle, likewise
The only thing you could have done is increase science spending to get Alphabet quicker. It's not that you particularly want alphabet, but what you do want is to win the race to writing ATM. From there you can make other choices which we will discuss at that time.

Turn 12

OK. You could have made this contact one turn earlier by using SHIFT-D. It's a trivial point, but a nice tip that you don't read about much.

The trading made me Not because it's bad, but because I can just tell you can't wait to get warrior code. You must have a thing for archers. I'm not ready to talk about war yet, because I want the game to get to a position where you have more choices. ATM you could only attempt an Archer rush. From the last game of yours that I looked at it seems like you can do that already.

Not buying alphabet is not a good idea. I know you are half way to researching it yourself, but again it all comes down to speed.
Taking alphabet now lets you start researching writing. Writing is good because it's quite expensive, so you can use it to trade for any first tier techs you don't have, and it will also help you to backfill the religious branch of the tech tree, which you have no intention of researching yourself. More importantly than that though, writing allows you to trade contacts, and establish embassies. Establishing embassies is good because it allows you to do stuff like investigate cities and stealing techs. But, much more fun than that, it allows you to start wars amongst your opponents That's why we want writing.

Turn 13
Irrigating the cattle is the best decision you will make in the game.
You will now have to try real hard to lose this game. It is that powerful a move. Bit boring maybe, but it's the quiet moves like this that will put the "super" into your nick.

Turn 15. Fortifying the warrior in Moscow is what I did. So I can hardly criticise can I?

Turn 17. Roading the tile is again the best move. Actually it won't help your movement much at all ATM because the road is separated from the capital by a river. The affect of rivers on unit movement is covered reasonably well in crackers article. However there is a better article by him on fighting an early war with chariots, where he doesn't follow his own advice on rivers. When we get to a war I'll get you to read it.

But, back to the road. This worker action saves a movement turn and increases your commerce. On completing this road the predicted time to finish writing dropped by 4 turns in my game.

Turn 20:
The worker move is weak. The tile the worker is on is a run of the mill grass tile. You may have been moving him somewhere else, I don't know, but working this tile doesn't get the job done. Having said that, from my previous posts you will have already gathered that this is a difficult choice, so don't worry about it.

You are obviously delighted to have popped a settler from a hut. Me, I was a bit upset until I saw where he was. By now you know I'm not going to give you the answer as to what to do with him. All I'll do is give you some information so you can make your mind up yourself.

A settler is worth a fortune. 30 shields and 40 food. Right now it will double the number of cities you have and increase the power of your civ by about 50% in terms of territory at least.

Barb settings are roaming. Which means that they are wandering around somewhere.

You have no unit with which to defend the settler.

The only barbs you will see at the moment are going to be warriors, unless another civ somewhere has popped Horseback riding from a hut. If you use the settler and scout together intelligently you may be able to get enough warning of an approaching barb to run away, settle immidiately, or use the scout as a sacrificial lamb to buy a turn or two.

The horse next to the settler is a chocolate teapot. Looks very nice, but is absolutely useless to you right now.

There is game on a forrest tile. This is very good. Chop down the forrest, irrigate the tile - 4 food surplus, job done.

You don't have a worker to do that.

A city there will have no defence. Who will your first war be with?
What chance would you have of holding a city up there if you went to war with errmmm... anybody. Can you even protect the city from barbs? Does it matter? When would it matter?

Every turn you spend moving the settler is one more turn without your second city. Read this thread. How many comments about whether to move the first settler just one tile are there? So, what's different here?

You brought up other points yourself due to corruption and FP placement. Although relevent, I want to deal with these very important concepts seperately and properly at a more appropriate time, so for the moment don't worry about it.

So tell me, what are YOU going to do with the settler?

Very nicely played Evie. I'm suitably impressed.
Now you need to answer my questions and tell me what you are going to do next. Then we'll play again.

 

[mad-bax]

 

[TedJackson]

Originally posted by mad-bax
The horse next to the settler is a chocolate teapot.

Says it all really

Nice play Evie


Ted

 

[Superevie]

Originally posted by TedJackson
Says it all really

Nice play Evie


Ted

Thanks guys!

I'm still torn on the settler. I might have enough time to make him back to the main area safely, but that's going to take time and A LOT of risk. If I plop em' where he is, the city is totally undefended and the romans could just snatch it up. Plus, I'm about to find France, and I've been backstabbed by Joan before. What should I do? I feel kinda damned if I do, damned if I don't, ya know. Sigh.

 

[Superevie]

Who will your first war be with?

Tough call. I would probably have to say the Romans because they are close by and are easily angered. They also build strong military and feel I am a weak and easy target.

What chance would you have of holding a city up there if you went to war with errmmm... anybody.

Unfourtunately, if someone declared was on me, I'd be out of the game fast. I only have one warrior as my army. I hope none of the other civs notice. I need to build that up a bit.

Can you even protect the city from barbs? Does it matter? When would it matter?

It definitely matters whether or not I can defend my city from barbs. They destroy the production you're working on, which could be devastating if you were working on a settler, or even a warrior. I don't have much faith that my city could be protected properly, although all barbs are conscript, if they move in a stack, I'm sunk. The good thing is that Moscow has a river, so if the barbs come from that direction, we have extra defense.

Next, I'm probably going to make a warrior. I have this other settler I don't know what to with, but a settler is a settler. I need some extra protection. Mosco is getting larger, so the warrior can probably be turned out quickly and then production will start on another settler. The worker needs to build the road to the ivory. This will keep my people in high spirits.

Good? Whew, I'm glad I did well on my last set of turns. I wasn't sure if I did okay or not.

 

[mad-bax]

You have to live and die by your own decisions Evie
But I'm surprised people haven't offered opinions.

While you're deciding what to do. Go to <<this>> thread, and tell Wizard that you can only play vanilla and "please sign me up".

You don't have to post to this thread every day. So if you play your own game without a safety net alongside this one then you will improve quicker. I would highly recommend anyone else here who is a little worried about playing at regent level to join too. This forum has been crying out for a game like Wizards for a long time.

 

[a space oddity]

That's very sound advice from MB, Evie. Apart from learning to play the game well, SGs are just a ton of fun. I started a few months ago and wish I had sooner...

 

[Superevie]

Originally posted by mad-bax
You have to live and die by your own decisions Evie
But I'm surprised people haven't offered opinions.

I'm surprised people haven't said anything either. :sigh: I think I'm going set up my settler where he is. It's risk, but I think I'll do it. I think.. :saiyan: why does this have to be so hard! Gah!

Oh yes, and I signed up for the other thingy...

 

[TedJackson]

Hi Evie,

I refrained from posting until MB commented

Here's what I would do:

I don't fancy trying to walk the Settler home so looking at the visible terrain I think the Red dot location is your best bet.

It's on a river, has 3BG immediately, a game tile for the future and it denies Rome the location (without a fight). Build order might be Warrior, Worker, Spear.

It should grow reasonably fast and will be a constant thorn in Rome's side

The worst thing that can happen is that you lose the town but it was a "freebie" anyway.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying this is the right or only thing to do, just that it's what I would do in this situation.


Ted

 

[Superevie]

I like that idea because it is kinda of a compromise. What level do play at anyway? Some credibilty would be much appreciated.

 

[TedJackson]

Deity & below

Have a look at any or all of the following SGs: MB1, MB2, MB3, Tark1, RJ1, EM5, EM6, ST4 to see the usual sort of shenanigans I get up to


Ted

 

[denyd]

For the gift settler, I'd try to make it to the SE-SE from the gems. A city there would have access to the wheat for growth and the gems to add another lux to your collection. Also with all those hills nearby, you'll have a lot of shields one you get out on Despotism. That would take about 10 moves by the settler. If you could get Moscow to pump out 2 other settlers by then. you'd be able to get a line of other cities that direction and with 4 cities you'd probably be the largest on the map. If you can get a 'settler factory' setup in 1 of your first 2 cities and use the rest for military, you should be able to get enough defense before the barb's blossom at the end of the age. Also if you're still in the market for warrior code, you might be able to make a deal with Rome since you just got the Wheel. It's normally a good idea to check with your contacts every couple of turns (some people check every turn!!) to see what they might have to offer. If you get the chance to buy a worker from the AI, if the price isn't too high, do it. It's a free worker (no support costs) for you and a loss of improved tiles for the AI.

By the way, since I haven't mentioned it yet, you're doing very well.

 

[Arathorn]

I wouldn't walk the settler all the way home either. You might make it and it'd be a reasonable plus if you did. You might not, and nothing's really lost in the effort. But.....

I would either found 2S of where you got the settler (gets the game, the horse, and is on a river) or 1W of where you are now (on a river, defensive benefit of a hill, get the horse). I don't like red dot because the horse is not within the fat-X 21 of that city spot and you can easily lose it to another city.

Moving a couple squares is probably safe. Barbs don't appear on any square that's never been explored. Odds are fairly good that you're the first to pass through the area in question, so you'll have a bit of a window to maneveur.

My builds would probably be warrior, worker, and then it would depend on my teching...walls, spear, library, barracks, warrior, possibly even settler would make sense.

The key is that ANY benefit from this city is a net plus. Just don't put in too many buildings and don't be afraid to abandon the city if it gets under too heavy an attack. Maximize its benefit, yes, but it's a free gift and doesn't (CAN'T) hurt the development of your core at all -- unless you let it.

And, being who I am, I'd have blood in my eye and already be envisioning a FP in Rome.....

BTW, I play mostly deity variants at this point, but will play any level if the interest is right....

Arathorn