JJ01-Moving up to Monarch

[Bigfoot]

Ditto, I really appreciate the constructive feedback. BTW I agree with the need for at least 1 medic upgrade, although I did not see the chance to get one during my turns.

I am fine with the team playing from Mutineer's save, if that is the consensus. For that matter, I think we would be in good shape playing from any of the saves. In my turns I was trying to slow down the tech pace so the axes would have the maximum impact. I too was surprised that our losses were not higher.

 

[Mutineer]

ok, next set of turns.

Spoiler :

Well, I continues to realise my plan.

Buildings wize, city N3 and N4 continue to whipe cats/axes.
City N2 and 3 continue to produce sci.
Capital produce Metallowork - missioner(we ned oje becaus ereligion does not naturally spread to city which allredy has an other religion) -
Collisey (mare happiness)-acveduc-Harden Gargen- missionary.

I love Harden garden, it have immidiate effect. +1 pop = as mininmum +30 shiled/town + 1 health. You know how I love health.
With my luck first missionary fail to confuse.

War went well, as planed. Masta send stach of doom of skirmishers which die killing one defending axe.

I start bombardment adn move healed axes to his capital.
Just befor I was ready to attack Masta traded Feodalism.
I saw it, but had no chance to stop. He traded Theology+Callendar to feodalism to Quin. I did not had any one this tech, so no chance to stop trade.

Did not matter, as I took capital next turn.

In process my bad luck continues. Cat attack my stak and killed fortivied axe in forest. Elefant attack and kill fortifyed axe in forest.

and I took capital. Made peace because need to regroup and we allredy took Masta best cities, no harry.

Research wize.
Was first to music and got free artist. After some thinking decided to wait and research Dramma myself, as peace and more trades reduced need of happiness.

Music-Dramma-(use Artist to discover Theology)-mechanic(for Maces).
We loose monopoly on music allmost next turn, it was close.
Traded theology for calendar and Music+dramma for Feodalism.
We produce next GP, Prophet.

I am undecided. we have choise between spending him to help as to discover divine right, or create buddist shrine or even stick it in our capital as supper specialists. I am sort of thinking about divine right, but not sure, no hurry thought.

We are first in GNP, prod, population. That is good, as it is saying that we are doing good. But I am useally look on other number Land.
We are only N5 and half of it is desert.

So, we are not out of the hole yet.

 

[Kikinit]

I've only managed to play 6 turns and take Mansa's capital. Suffered a few losses, but have to make peace with Mansa now as he has got Feudalism and his longbowmen are hurting our axemen. He's also had war elephants.

I will have to play my next turns 24 hours from now as RL has called me back for tonight.

 

[rddc05]

Here's the basics of my turns:

Spoiler :

Pretty similar to Mutineer's turns to 700. I couldn't get Feudalism, but we have National Epic in Delhi with 3 turns to Hanging Garden. 12 turns to Colossus in Bombay. Hooked up clams north of Madras for extra health. Burned the Great Prophet on Theology and Great Artist on about 1000 beakers toward Divine Right. Traded cows to mansa for spices.

The screens tell the rest of the story.

 

[Mutineer]

rddc05, you forgot to attach save, if you want for me to look at it and givr some criticism or praise.
Anyone else?

 

[jeejeep]

No, sorry, I don't have time to play this one.

 

[rddc05]

Doh!! I knew I was forgetting something. I will attach it when I get home from work tonight. If you guys are ready to proceed now, go ahead and use Mutineer's. Sorry, guys.

 

[Kikinit]

As mentioned in my earlier post, I managed to get Mansa's capital without major losses and then I sued for peace immediately as there is no way i have the power to wipe him out now with his longbowmen.

I got an artist and a scientist. The scientist I used for an academy in Delhi.

I researched Drama and Music and traded Music to Roosevelt for Theology as Qin already had Music. Feudalism is due in 2 and The Hanging Gardens in 1. I some trades with Qin and with Roosevelt so now almost all our cities are in health and all are happy.

I must say all this desert with no production is a bit new to me and it's hard not to overwhip some of these cities. The only way that Madras will build anything is by the whip, but it's been whipped so much that it will be 30+ turns of happiness.

-

 

[Bigfoot]

I misunderstood that we were playing another round of concurrent turns and have already seen all the spoilers (unfortunately).

 

[rddc05]

OK, here's the save:

 

[Mutineer]

Ok, comments first:

Kikinit

My biggest beef with you will be you researching Feodalism yourself.
Most or all AI knows Feodalism or will in short time. It is not a good trade matherial. I do believe that feodalism will be very important for as for the reasons I will explain later, but it is allways better to research something that will be a good trade matherial.
Second big mistake is to use GS to create Academy in Thiebes.
Thiebes deducated as GP farm and you actially build national epic there, making it permanent GP farm.
That is my plan, but academy waster on it.
Thiebes is out holy city. We can build only 2 national wanders and holly city practically automatically mean Wall streat. National epic is for gp farm. To maximise use of Wall Street most of GP we would run will be merchants.
In a future I would suggest we consider moving our capital to Timbuki, as it will be ebst industrial/sci city and would have mach more central location.

Our old cities can prebuild courthouses, reducing our expanes with moving capital. But that is a bit away.

I was praying on getting GS, but I got GP.
best use for GS for as was to discover Philosofy.
Reasons I will explain later.
But even with out this reasons, Philosofy is a critical tech, needed for liberalism.

rddc05

You save is a bit better, but still you fail to trade for Feodalism. I am not sure what reason, but I suspect you traded to fast.
Second, amount of points GP give toward sertan sci depends on our population. More population - more points.
So, it is allways better to keep GP untill you actially researching tech in question.

That is my comments. Give me some time to explain our plan for future.
I think we now return to useal sequential format.

Now, insted of giving detail instructions I will define and explain reasons for strategy decisions and some micro managing tecnique.
Next post coming.

 

[Kikinit]

Mutineer. Thanks a lot for all the comments. I really am learning a lot from them all and I just hope I can soak them up and apply them in future games.

One big Doh! moment for me is that I saw Philosophy an thought that would be useful... Then I didn't do anything about it for a few turns and later on it wasn't philosophy any more. I think I traded for some pre-req of another tech so it changed.

I am glad to see a return to the sequential format of SG. It'll be a little less work for Mutineer that way

 

[rddc05]

Yeah, after my initial trades I was getting WFYABTA from all the AI. Good point about the GP too, obvious now that it is pointed out.

So, we play Mutineer's save? And who is up next?

 

[Mutineer]

So, we take my save.
I think starting from my save we now in solid position to win. We are first in many demographic areas, but only 5th in land and half of our land is desert.
In about 3 turns we are getting Mechanic = Maceman.

That mean any x-bows are not the problem. In addition Masta reduced down to almost nothing.

So, priority N1 is to finish Masta.
Priority N2 Expand.

We have good land to the left of Masta capital. IN addition after we finish Masta we should full our entire island befor AI attempt to settle there.

So, expansion stage. Our workers will have a lot of thinks to do.

There where Feudalism come in. It allows Serfdom.
Serfdom replaces slavery and speed workers 50%.

Now I will be talking about using Mystical trait that I believe is the most powerful trait in a game. It let as to switch civics every 5 turns for no cost.

No workers work 50% faster, but they spend same time moving and building something that take less then 3 turns to build (Roads on most terrain).

So, to optimize Worker time and Serfdom we can move workers on jungles/forest/hill and build road when running slavery and cut forest/jungle build improvements when running serfdom.

Now when we need slavery? When we pop rush something.

So, befor pop rushing buildings switch to slavery/Organized religion, pop rush when building roads and switch to serfdom/ (pacifism for example) for rest of turn.
Or switch to slavery/theocracy to whip a few Maceman and switch back when finished.

For us serfdom/Pacifism is very good combo in expanding stage, as many of our fishing villages have excess food and on health limit. They can use food to run specialists, which is more efficient then working coastal ties.
Only our capital or Timbuki have reasonable no slavery production. So, switching civic this way would not hurt as.

I suspect that 2 maceman + existing army would be enough to finish Masta. If you unsure whip 4.

About what to build. On that stage my build order for new/conjured cities would be:
Granary-Forge-courthouse-

Research proposed: Machinery – divine right (spend Prophet to speed up)

I like to have access to much religion at my fingertip, as many religions made very powerful start with free religion civic. After finish Masta we will have 3 holly cities, one more would not hurt.

Some how (may be by trade) obtain philosophy.

From that point we would have choose of 2 ways.

1) Paper-Education-Liberalism-(Take Nationalism as a free tech)-military tradition-gunpowder and take on our neighbors.

2) –Optics guild banking direction, witch AI usually take.

Personally I prefer option 1.

So, short terms plan is to whip 2-4 maces in 3 turns, finish Masta and start to oscillate between slavery/serfdom to speed up land improvement.

Settle the rest of continent ASP.
I think we finish with Wonders until we settle our continent, as our capital will be our main settler/worker production centre.

If we get philosophy we would oscillate between slavery/organized religion and serfdom/Pacifism combo.

We should fix our developed fishing villages that instead of working water ties they work as specialists. Personally I do not see mach point of building Colossus now, as it would be absolute soon and we can get more out of specialists, then of even 3 commerce water ties.

Our fishing villages have 6-8 food, so run 3-4 specialists each.

GP points I prefer on that stage would be:

Scientist = merchamant >Engineer>Artist>priests.

So, my advice would be to build Market in them and then together with libraries run mixture of sci/merchant specialists.

Now can some one make a dot map for jungle land for as to discuss and mark needed chain irrigation.

I noticed you started to put cottages with out thinking again.

Every city has to have minimum 6, I prefer >6 food excess to be converted by mines or by slavery into shields and provide reasonably fast grow.
So, first improvements you need to build are farms in order to achieve this target. After that you can build mines/cottages.

 

[Mutineer]

Roster:
Jeejeep - On Deck
rddc05
TomPW
Kikinit
Mutineer
Bigfoot - Up

 

[Mutineer]

One more think, there is barbarian Axe near Timbuki in my save.

 

[Bigfoot]

Very instructive comments, Mutineer. I will try to absorb everything during my turn set.

 

[Bigfoot]

Well, the good news is that we took Mansa's city. The bad news is that he spammed out two more for us to capture:

Pre-turn, no major changes. Goals for this set are to (1) finish Mansa and (2) expand. We will need at least a couple of maces, but Machinery is due in 3 turns. So the attack will occur during the later part of my turns. Looks like we are going to need more workers to handle all of that jungle (we currently have 6).

<IBT: Delhi missionary => worker.>

T1:
- Send missionary to convert the heathens in Djenne.
- Use GP to get 1114 beakers towards Divine Right.
- Mansa builds Walata N. of Timbuktu.
- Promote one axe and send him with a buddy to the jungle to deal with the barb axe there.
- Whip a granary in Djenne.
- Timbuktu is stagnant until it can work the rice (7 turns). Put a theatre at the front of the queue (due in 4).

<IBT: Barb axe attacks our bait axe and dies.>

T2:
- Whip theatre in Timbuktu.
- Positioning units to hit Mansa soon.
- Send our sentry chariot to start scouting the jungle.

<IBT: Machinery => Divine Right (4 turns); Delhi worker => mace.>

T3:
- Start maces in Banglore and Calcutta.

T4:
- Switch civics to slavery / theocracy.
- Whip maces in Calcutta and Bangalore.
- Whip theatre in Madras => CH.

<IBT: Delhi mace => National Epic; Calcutta mace => resumes forge; Timbuktu expands its borders.>

T5:
- Timbuktu working the rice now and is growing again.

T6:
- Spread Confus. in Djenne.

<IBT: Divine Right (Bombay = holy city) => Paper.>

T7:
- Not too sure what to do with the Islamic missionary. I would like to send him overseas, but we seem to have lost our galley. Move him towards Djenne.

<IBT: Delhi Nat'l Epic => settler.>

T8:
- Decide to attack Mansa now (5 axes, 4 cats and 1 mace for the attack on Kumbi Saleh, with more maces on the way). Move toward the city and see he has 3 LB, 1 cat and a spear there.

<IBT: Mansa hits our SOD with his cat; a lone sword appears S. of Kumbi Saleh, seems to be looking at Djenne.>

T9:
- Move our SOD by Kumbi Saleh.
- Bombay has health and happiness issues, start a duct there.

<IBT: Delhi settler => mace.>

T10:
- A follow-up mace takes out the Mali sword (6.9/8).
- Start bombarment of KS, but do not attack yet.

<IBT: Paper => Education.>

T11:
- Capture Kumbi Saleh with the loss of 2 cats and 1 axe. We capture a worker there too.
- Whip a duct in Bombay.
- Whip the CH in Madras.

I played an extra turn to finish taking Kumbi Saleh. Unfortunatley Mansa built yet another city by the other iron, so we still have 2 cities to take.

BTW, here is my shot at a dotmap for the territory west of Timbuktu. With some TLC from our workers we could get some pretty good cities going over there.

 

[Mutineer]

I am at work, can not look on save, but everything seems to be in order.

Dot map wize. I would move Red Dot down to make city coastal. Loose of 1 grasland rive and one hill is not enoght to convince to not have it coastal.

Blue dot will work Dyes, so no lost here.

Plan wize everything looks fine.
I would suggest Raise Walata, it is in bad location.
Could next person make a dot map for the rest of continent?

Jeejeep - up
rddc05 - On deck
TomPW
Kikinit
Mutineer
Bigfoot - Just played

 

[Mutineer]

About trades. Jenerally there is no hurry right now to trade anything.

WE still shoule not trade out Civil servis untill an AI discover it for itself.
We absolutly should not trade Papar, Education.

We should try to obtain Philosofy by trade if posible. We need it for liberalism.

Probably better wait a bit so we can get a bunch of tech for Divine Right.