KoS4 - Something more casual (?)

[kossin]

^^

I agree on slowing down, there's still a lot to be discussed and rounds are flying by!
City F next is quite fine with me, it's a lot more useful as a stand-alone.

Chariots should be kept busy pillaging tiles for a while so I don't expect Nappy or Zara to break out even if they research IW (unless one of them settled on top of it).

Usually 1500BC is a decent Oracle date I think so there still seems to be some time for us to get it. Writing would be next after PH so that we can start running 2 scientists ASAP and hope to get a GS rather than a GP (which wouldn't be all that bad settled but still).

With early library unlikely, PH before Writing is probably safer to nab Oracle.

I'd put cottages on the 2 riverside grasses in Carthage for paying the bills but that's it.

Copper will likely not be mined yet (unless he has 2 workers on it) and we can pillage it on 3rd turn of war.
Horses can be done on 2nd turn I think.

Next chariot should head to Nappy for pillaging.

 

[babybluepants]

I guess PH first is fine. Hard to imagine squeezing in a library anytime soon, unfortunately.

I'd put cottages on the 2 riverside grasses in Carthage for paying the bills but that's it.

I was thinking of farming those... IDK, haven't played FIN in a while, so tend to forget how good riverside is early on. Probably better as cottages.

 

[timmy827]

^^

I agree on slowing down, there's still a lot to be discussed and rounds are flying by!
City F next is quite fine with me, it's a lot more useful as a stand-alone.

Sure. I think this was a natural consequence of 15 turn sets from the start instead of something longer, and the nature of the early game choke plan constrained much of the other choices. Having a slower pace now is fine.

I'm still not convinced on the plains farms vs. cottages but if we're agreed on cottaging grass first, we can kick that can for another 15 turns.

Taking a wider view, I don't know if early military pumping is all that necessary. We need greater power eventually for the vassaling, but if the double choke is successful I expect we may spend a lot of time expanding into what should have been France/Ethiopia, and not start the first "real" war until Curiassers or Riflemen. Just a thought.

Didn't realize kossin was suggesting Oracle monarchy instead of abandoning oracle altogether. If we try this do we want the Masonry/city F detour for marble? We could move it 1N to settle on the useless desert and get marble 1st ring.

 

[babybluepants]

Teching Masonry and querrying/roading marble is a substantial investment early in the game. The Oracle is pretty cheap to begin with... I like the original location of that city better long-term, due to fresh water. The one thing to be said for 1N of there is that it completes the land block sooner, as we wouldn't need a border pop in City E. Hammy probably won't even wanna settle anything in resourceless tundra-ice for a while, though, so that's dubious at best... I think original location is the best overall.

BTW, with marble, I do generally like a Lit beeline. TGL/NE would most likely be best in City D. I'd like to settle that early enough so it can have mature production by then. Probably be the city after next, IMHO. Not that we'll necessarily chase that tech line or that it's a pressing decision, I'm just throwing it out there.

I don't think I've ever done a Monarchy sling. I've seen kossin do it before, so I'm sure it's an ok move... It's just so easy to trade for (probably with just whatever else you get via Oracle), by the time you'd actually need HR for further growth. I think this is especially true with 2 extra happy from CHA.

 

[Stochastic]

I think the main advantage of taking the copper now is helping to block Hammy and ensuring that we have some metal. Maybe we should ship a settler over to the East and then not settle until we see him moving towards us?

I very very rarely go for the oracle, usually I just go straight for Alpha and Aesthetics and trade up the religion line so I don't have much to add to that debate except that I expect we will be cramming in a lot of cities so CoL might be more useful than it would be otherwise?

 

[babybluepants]

Well, I'd be perfectly ok skipping the Oracle investment, given how much expansion and choking we need to do here. Then again, it's a bit silly to tech the religious line on Emp and not go for it. The standard COL sling is probably the best option, IMHO.

BTW, I completely missed the fact that Zara already has BW. Maybe my previous comments made no sense as a result... I'm definitely for an immediate DOW and heading for his copper tile. I feel like I've mostly seen AI's whip axes instead of spears in that kind of situation, but better safe than sorry.

 

[timmy827]

Re: BW and Zara and war - We have one turn before the 1st chariot is ready to cross the border, I think 2 more before a 2nd chariot is ready for the copper and the western one is near the horse. Since he just got BW a few turns ago, I think it's better to wait for all 3 to be in position.

 

[Mutineer]

In this variant grabbing land is critical. Standard strategy to build wander to get future tech advantage does not work, as we can not take over cities AI build, not easy.
Wanders I mention help grabbing land and claiming land try culture. We would really want cistine chapel, but otherwize....

 

[Tatran]

In this variant grabbing land is critical.

I think we can forget about that. See report and sorry for the quality of it.

 

[Tatran]

Link to video.


The clip (7.78 MB) in (maybe) better quality :

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TZ5MATFN

 

[mlinneak]

Looks good, Tatran

I saw that Napoleon will sign peace now, but I am thinking it might be better, at least for now, to stay at war and in his borders preventing him from utilizing that copper. What do you guys think? We should still be able to fit in a few more cities too.

 

[timmy827]

Likely we won't be signing peace with Napoleon until he caps.

It appears that you only went for the copper and never pillaged the horse, can you confirm?

Ugh, barb city in our next spot was bad luck.

What do we do with Zara now? It looks like we will not be able to maintain this choke...

 

[babybluepants]

Did I miss a part of the discussion? I completely didn't realize we'd be putting a city in that spot. Don't really like the spot, as it takes up what would have been two cities (especially with the barb city now planted in the other spot - so no opportunity for dotmap adjustment). It's probably not so bad, but I would really prefer a clear team consensus on critical matters like this.

What happened with pillaging the horse pasture? I was under the impression that would be gone in a matter of a few turns and it's been 15. Doesn't look to me like we can hold Zara now without expending too much energy in that direction, so the DOW is a bad move in retrospect. I'll have to think about how I'd proceed on the choking matter... Not really sure. If we were to let Zara go at this point, we could maybe at least put our chariot production to use on the barb city?

Why are we teching Hunting?

I'll have think about it some more and post ideas for the next set later today or tmr.

 

[Tatran]

Don't really like the spot, as it takes up what would have been two cities

I had no choice. City E spot was iilegal and I want to have silver, marble and copper.
Forget about the old dotmap.
We need a new one based on culture flipping cities, which is allowed.

Why are we teching Hunting?

We have lost 2 chariots around the Ethiopian copper mine.
So, spearmen are welcome.

The main problem with that barb city, it's on a hill.

And yes, Zara still has the horses.

 

[kossin]

Can't say much for now... I was also under the impression of going after horses+copper at the same time.

Will look at save tomorrow evening and post my thoughts.

 

[Stochastic]

That's a fun way of posting a report, but it seems to have left some confusion (eg exact dates and thoughts) that could be easily cleared up with text. Maybe a voice over rather than music would help clear up those sort of issues?

Like everyone else I'm wondering why the horses weren't pillaged. Maybe there were several archers guarding it? Otherwise I'm a bit confused about that.

Regarding the site for our new city, I'm with Babybluepants, while I think it is probably in the right spot given the Babylonian site, it probably would have been best to take a pause and ask for a team consensus. For instance it might have been placed 1W of the copper for an instant copper source and then left it to fish the ocean so that we could fit another city in for the marble and corn.

As an aside, I think it would have been better to work the marble to get the obelisk out asap so that we can get the cultural pressure up on Hammy.

Re hunting, while I would usually hold off on teching/trading for it I don't think it is that bad, the spears will be useful to deal with Zara's chariots as long as we can keep the copper down. Probably I would have defaulted to writing to grab those scientists and hopefully start on Alpha to trade with the rest of the world, but I think spears might actually come in handy for once !

 

[Tatran]

I was also under the impression of going after horses+copper at the same time.

With only 3 chariots? This was way too optimistic.

The best solution to this game is a termination.
Everything looks bad, which causes frustrations to all players.

The passive/aggressive SGs were played with a CRE leader.(Catherine and AC)
Difficulty levels were prince and monarch.

This SG is 1 level higher with a leader with useless traits/UU/UB and starting techs for this variant.
Poor land, no close metals, 3 neighbours who expand in our direction and one of them, Zara,
is out of control until we have a vassal or are able to produce more culture.

 

[timmy827]

My personal view is that a restart isn't warranted unless we're sure to lose; yes there have been setbacks and our position is not good right now but I don't think it's hopeless either. I'm sorry if my questions after Tatran's set gave the impression of being frustrated or unhappy.

Regarding comments on Hannibal: I was under the impression that the majority of the action would be getting vassals and helping them conquer; when I threw out the bits about culture pushing I was envisioning it as "icing on the cake" rather than the mainstay. Thus I don't think the lack of CRE is that big a deal.

 

[Mutineer]

We are still fine, I do believe we can get double of Nappy land.

 

[Tatran]

We are still fine, I do believe we can get double of Nappy land.

And a war against Zara to achieve this wasn't necessary, right?

Well, if we'd have had a solid plan to vassalize Napoleon first, we'd have focussed discussion and putting resources in this direction.