KoS4 - Something more casual (?)

[Mutineer]

To be true, war with Zara still could have been done, but somewhere along the way purpose was lost. Purpose was to steal his workers, this slow him down and speed as up.

Pillaging cooper houses is not purpose, but this which might help, but not necessary to do. By some strange reason workers were not stolen, so he was not slowed down.

one more this was lost, direction.

I was thinking our direction is clear, to claim as mach land as possible why delaying 1-2 AI claiming to mach land.

Some where along the way Oracle appear? we simply can not sustain 2 wars and build wanders at the same time. it is not possible. IN really this 3 chariots should have gone to nappy and hunt his settlers, or stay at border of Zara and hunt his settlers with out war declaration before clear benefit was achieved. BTS has better AI and difficulty level was upped, so less thinks in parallel are possible.

I was hoping people would read old SG's and analyzed what and how it was done. I really do not want to direct game myself and hopping we come with some new creative ideas or implement old one's.

 

[Tatran]

By some strange reason workers were not stolen, so he was not slowed down.

Not true, Zara has lost 2 workers, which were redirected without protection, but they made it to our territory.

IN really this 3 chariots should have gone to nappy and hunt his settlers, or stay at border of Zara and hunt his settlers with out war declaration before clear benefit was achieved.

I fully agree with you, but I'd have appreciated it when you had said this earlier.
Zara managed to build a third city and has now a new settler protected by a chariot
in the south where also Mansa Musa is located.
There's only 1 of our chariots left over there.
I wouldn't mind if babybluepants tries his luck.

 

[babybluepants]

@Mutineer, I'm sorry. I glanced at the other games but I've been too busy to read through them since this started. I'll try to go through it tmr.

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.

I wouldn't mind if babybluepants tries his luck.

I don't know how my comments came across. I'm not saying you played poorly... I play in other SG's, and TS's generally tend to go exactly according to a clear pre-play plan. Here I was completely surprised by all of: Zara war result, tech choice, settling placement. If the plan as discussed is "too optimistic" (not reasonable, reflecting lack of careful thought and discussion on part of the team), then say so before you play or after you play through a few turns and realize it.

We are still in good position to shut down Napoleon, so I think we should just focus on that and try to quickly settle whatever land we can in Zara's direction. I'll think about it some more and post something in the way of a plan tmr, as I was busy with another couple of games this weekend. Maybe we'll also hear from kossin by then.

 

[Tatran]

I'm not saying you played poorly...

If I had followed Kossin's advice to pillage the Ethiopian copper mine with 1 chariot,
you would have seen enemy spears and axes during your turn set.

I play in other SG's, and TS's generally tend to go exactly according to a clear pre-play plan. Here I was completely surprised by all of: Zara war result, tech choice, settling placement. If the plan as discussed is "too optimistic" (not reasonable, reflecting lack of careful thought and discussion on part of the team), then say so before you play or after you play through a few turns and realize it.

And every time when something messes up the holy plan consulting the other team members?

I've a much better plan :
Why don't you re-play my turn set? No surprises and you're in full control (something you'll be missing soon).
And last but not least, a few extra turn sets for everybody will certainly help team building.

 

[babybluepants]

Well, I can't exactly do that now with perfect hindsight. Frankly, I'd be very happy end this argument, since it's not leading anywhere, and try to proceed. Sorry if I offended you. I'm just finding it hard to inherit the game at this point, and I probably over-reacted.

Spears generally suck because they are massacred by equal-priced axes, and you simply don't have the requisite production this early in the game for fully specialized units. I'm for giving up on this war. He now has more units than us, more cities, Emp production bonuses, horses and will most likely have copper before we do. On top of that, we want to maintain a separate choke on Napoleon. I just don't think we can reasonably have enough unit production from a fairly mediocre 3-city base to maintain the current course. We should focus on developing whatever land is available and keeping Napoleon in check.

Do people disagree? If you think we should continue with aggression, I'd like to hear suggestions.

 

[kossin]

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.

I agree this wasn't the most clear statement on my part. I tried it however and Zara only produced 1 Chariot because the horses were pillaged afterwards.

I apologize if it sounded harsh, I failed to realize my thoughts weren't explained adequately.

The choke is still manageable, we'll just have to spend a few more hammers on Chariots than expected at first, until say HBR comes around.

1. Pillage horses. Send the Chariots in route to pillage them. Once Zara can't build them anymore, he'll only make Archers and probably go into defensive mode with his current Chariots... meaning not attack us.
2. Pillage roads between cities. No network, less research, slower movement, good for us.
3. Keep chariots in pairs. I'm guessing 2 pairs should be sufficient.
4. Move away from farmable tiles and give him time to rebuild them. It means more pillage gold for us.
5. We need to trade for IW ASAP to make sure he hasn't settled on top of a source or it'll mean trouble for our choke. To make it easier, pillage roads as in #2.

Hunting certainly makes The Oracle a no-situation now. It's not too bad however as we needed Mysticism anyway. Aesthetics can be used as a trade chip as with MM in the game Alphabet might be gone earlier. Marble also suggests TGL+Parthenon.

As a result, Masonry+Polytheism should be next techs... and should The Oracle go late, PH is a cheap tech and required for Monarchy and CoL (price reduction I mean). I wouldn't even finish Hunting right now as a matter of fact, it's useless to us until we get Ivory inside our culture. We probably won't need spears to keep the choke on Zara once horses are pillaged and we kill 1~2 chariots.

We want to block Hammy also so next city should go east I fear. Start cottaging a bit around Carthage grasslands, I hate to be working so many unimproved tiles.

Lastly, a pre-play plan as was mentioned would be encouraged as sometimes it's hard to put all the information together and as was seen here, sometimes it's not clear at all
~~~
I say let's stick to this game. It might end up a bit harder but we're here for the fun, right??

 

[babybluepants]

Ok, I guess we can just go for the horse pasture with that one chariot pair, and also just try to get a better idea of his existing units.

Not sure how you expect to get IW anytime soon... Settled on iron is a bit moot, anyway, given the variant. Not like we can do anything about it. If metal units show up eventually, we'll know.

If we crank out chariots from Carthage, I'm not sure when to squeeze out the next settler... Suppose we'd need one by the end of my set, if we wanna a realistic chance to complete a block against Hammy? Whatever city we plunk in the east will be kinda crappy. I'll have to think about where to put it. The only legal spots around there are City F itself or something like 1W of it. Take the corn away from the current copper/marble city and it really gets sucky, though...

Tech - I'd nix Hunting, too. By default I'd go for Writing next, but Masonry/Poly is ok with me. You're hoping to still snatch the Oracle if it's available, or at least some marble-cash? Again, we don't have a whole lotta production to spare.

 

[Stochastic]

I think we should keep playing, it certainly isn't over yet. So here are my thoughts.

Choke:
I think we may as well keep trying for one more set, we can't get peace without giving up Utica anyways.

Research thoughts:
Do we really want to go for Masonry and Polytheism next? I'm just not sure that they add anything. Lit and the wonders are just so far away that I don't see either being all that helpful anytime soon. I'd plug for writing to get some scientist specialists available so that we aren't stuck on strike and no way to research.

Carthage builds:
I'd suggest that we get a granary in Carthage so that we can do some efficient whips. It is currently working the unimproved spice tile instead of either of the farms to avoid hitting a happy cap.

Granary-whip into chariot - chariot to regrow - whip settler for Hammy block?

Next settler site:
I think either 2S of the corn or 2S of the Marble
Personally I prefer the 2S of the corn as it opens up space for one more city between it and Carthage. If Hammy doesn't have a settler near by when we get there it might be worth exploring the two fogged patches for seafood.

 

[kossin]

Writing certainly makes sense, I forgot we didn't have it

We can 2-whip the settler from Carthage no prob but I wouldn't whip granary I think. 2nd city should be able to start contributing on Chariots in a few turns so it lessens burden of Carthage a bit.

Keep the micro to avoid unhappy citizens.

Not too sure about where to put the block on Hammy, I'll have to think some more about it but it definitely needs a food resource... can't have another lesser city here.

 

[Stochastic]

Why not whip the granary? The anger from the last whip is almost gone and maxed overflow will practically build another chariot. And it would be nice to have before the next settler so that that whip is more efficient.

If we could send a unit (the ice fogbuster?) down to the fogged coast to check for sea food that would help for the city site decision.

 

[timmy827]

Do we need to complete the block on Hammy? Looking at the bad options for settling, I don't think it's likely he will try settling towards us again.

 

[kossin]

Oh he will definitely try to settle in our direction again, the question is "when?"

For instance, we still need 22 turns to pop borders in Hadrumetum, leaving him plenty of time to settle the corn in his first ring and steal it from us.

Options I see:
-share the corn (bad, as Hadrumetum sucks without it)
-2N1E of fish (steals away fish from GP farm but there just might be another food resource down there)
-don't bother with it and settler better spots (not great for our variant, Hammy is usually one of the guys that's not too hard to get to Friendly)

Granary: I don't think a Granary is important now. The city has a good food surplus naturally and we're not even working our specials atm... a crime! (I'd rather stagnate it by working on a settler/worker and resuming him later)

BTW, we currently have 6 chariots, there are 2 sitting and doing nothing at all in Hadrumetum. With barb cities going up, barbs aren't going to bother us much anymore.

As a result, I'd say we don't need more than one (1) extra chariot to get the job done on Zara...

WESTERN ZARA

• There is likely a road+improvement to be pillaged on the turn before they reach the horses! Don't send them in on the horse pasture, let them pillage the tile before it (in 3 turns from now)
• 2 western Chariots go pillage horses (4 turns from now)

EASTERN ZARA

• Send the 2 chariots from Hadrumatum right away. The risks of a barb coming its way are low and Carthage will have a spare Chariot in 3 turns anyway.
• We see 2 chariots, but 1 counts as settler escort. With 2 more chariots we will probably have enough to do with him on that side. Pillage everything in sight, even roads. Should he get his hands on Iron, we want him to be stuck with newbie land and only the city settled on top of it to be able to produce Axes/spears/swords
• This gives us 4 chariots(should the southern one survive, otherwise 3 should still be good) on his eastern flank which should be more than enough.

NAPOLEON

• Keep at it, he's really not moving at all.
• Send the Chariot from Utica to do pillaging when it completes.

Finally, Carthage Micro:
-Let it grow on the same turn it completes the chariot, meaning you assign the spice tile to either of the food resources so it grows in 3/finish chariot in 3. This will give 1 turn of an unhappy citizen but more importantly, it allows to start on a settler and have an extra citizen join the work the following turn.
-The produced Chariot should head in Hadrumatum's direction and look south a bit to see if there's an extra food resource around the fish to steal from Hammy.
-I'd send the settler east near the fish rather than let Hammy have the area. We can backfill west/south later.


~~~

Should the game fail horribly, I would certainly consider relaunching it with a Creative leader to secure land more easily in the beginning... after all it's not the easiest of variants and land is pretty important to us.

 

[babybluepants]

For instance, we still need 22 turns to pop borders in Hadrumetum, leaving him plenty of time to settle the corn in his first ring and steal it from us.

We can have that border pop in 18t, but as far as I can see, his city has the corn in its eventual BFC? This is a major reason I preferred City F initially. Hate settling contentious food in outside circle without CRE.

Options I see:
-share the corn (bad, as Hadrumetum sucks without it)
-2N1E of fish (steals away fish from GP farm but there just might be another food resource down there)
-don't bother with it and settler better spots (not great for our variant, Hammy is usually one of the guys that's not too hard to get to Friendly)

We might take quite some time getting to CS for friendly here.
I personally prefer sharing the corn and putting it in the first circle this time. 2S of marble seems ok. One of the cities will suck, with the other still kinda meh, but you can chalk one up to block value, I think. I agree with sending the next chariot that way to check it out a bit more. If there's value in settling further for the fish, I'd reconsider. I imagine Hammy might make our mind up for us, by beating us to the fish.

I don't think a Granary is important now.

Agree.

-Let it grow on the same turn it completes the chariot, meaning you assign the spice tile to either of the food resources so it grows in 3/finish chariot in 3. This will give 1 turn of an unhappy citizen but more importantly, it allows to start on a settler and have an extra citizen join the work the following turn.

I don't play this with BUG, so I was actually gonna ask... It's 4t of whip anger left then?

Should the game fail horribly, I would certainly consider relaunching it with a Creative leader to secure land more easily in the beginning... after all it's not the easiest of variants and land is pretty important to us.

Don't see it failing horribly.

War
I basically agree with everything kossin said. I think we'll wanna slowly build up some numbers over the next few sets, but should be ok for now. Actually completely missed the chariots in Hadre before.

I usually wouldn't so early, but kinda wanna take that barb city soon... It's really the best city we could have right now. Not my set, but I'll try and think about what it would take.

 

[timmy827]

I usually wouldn't so early, but kinda wanna take that barb city soon... It's really the best city we could have right now. Not my set, but I'll try and think about what it would take.

It is, but being on a hill I would think 2 axes or 2.5-3 chariots per archer to take. Emperor garrisons are 3 archers right? Normally I would suggest putting 1-2 units next to "steal" if if an AI kills some but not all the garrison, but that seems less likely with Zara pinned down by war.

The pigs/wheat/ivory/river SW of Utica is also real good. I suppose it is pretty safe if the war against Zara goes well though.

Kossin's war plan sounds sort of like mine after my turnset, I'm worried about finding Zara with more chariots than expected like Tatran did, but since we are already at war I guess it is best plan right now.

 

[babybluepants]

Since there were no comments, I went ahead and played 9t. Stopped for consult...

Zara: moved all chariots there. We lost two at crappy odds, but took two of his. He's down to CG archers -2 and one combat2 chariot that's sitting in Aksum. He also popped a GG early in the set. It was sitting in his east city, then disappeared, so I assume he settled it there. I pillaged the horses, corn at Aksum, and most of his roads. Also, I just nabbed his settler this turn, killing an archer in the process.
DG hasn't done anything yet.
Another barb city popped up in the SW. They're a bit annoying now.
Carthage: micro was great. Grow+chariot in 3t, 3 more turns for 59h exactly, then 2-pop whip a settler. Now building a monument for extra while growing back. Hadre built a monument on marble, then switched to growth (I farmed a grass for now). Utica I switched to grow, as the unworked rice farm + oasis were hurting my eyes. That's delaying the chariot intended for DG, but I think it's ok.
Settler is currently 2S of marble and hasn't moved yet this turn...

Dilemma: Where to settle? I think we'll likely lose the corn unless we settle it again. Hadre is too crappy to keep up in culture. I'm for settling the original City F spot. It has the added bonus of limiting number of border tiles to where we might not be a LT (could someone confirm this - I'm too stupid with these things). I'd rather share the corn between two cities, then give it to him.
Other options are settle where we stand or go for the fish (2SE of current position).
I would also consider waiting to settle until his settler starts moving. We're hurting for cash, and I'd like to finish Writing asap. What do people think about this?

Sorry, no screenies tonight. It's getting late, and I'm too lazy.

Can finish the set tmr, if we agree on where to settle. I think it's a tricky issue and we should think about it some...

 

[Stochastic]

Looking good so far, nice to see such a turn around vs Zara

Here is a reminder of where city F is

Spoiler :

The yellow circle is our settler's current location

I think site F is probably best given the circumstances. In an ideal world where we owned SH or were creative I'd say 2S of the corn for a few more workable tiles (lighthouse+some grass) but that will mean longer to guarantee control of the corn.

I'd suggest we cottage all of city F and just let it sit at size 7 the rest of the game. Then Hadrum would get the corn to help work the silver and Marble.

Re the settler, I think holding off is the right move. When the new city gets a trade route it will pay for itself (working the ocean tile until riverside cottage) but it will also raise costs everywhere else too. Speaking of which, I'd suggest building some another riverside plains cottage near Carthage. Also we could work the oasis/lake tiles and still get growth next turn to squeeze out a few more gold.

 

[kossin]

Nice set!

The chariot pairs were exactly there for those kind of things. The problem with chariots is they don't receive defensive bonus from terrain features, however, they do get the river bonus, meaning choking chariots would be better on the other side of a river for now for better defending odds. Keep some chariots roaming so he doesn't get another settler out and the choke is complete.

Settler: the old spot 'F' will have to do. I checked the last set played and he already has a Monument there by t91, so we can expect a border pop within 6 turns, probably less. This means we really need the corn in a first culture ring or we'll lose it as he'll always have a bit more culture in the tile than us.
2S would be nice for coast and more green but it'll be a long time to control the corn. (At least another 30 turns... meaning 2 crappy cities).

Definitely wait for settling, our economy is already in the dumps so let's wait until we stop being negative at 0%. I'd put a road network in advance however so we get +1 commerce right away.

Hadrumetum already has enough food to work silver + marble (2+1 (city tile+grassland farm)) as well as the lake tile so the corn can stay with city F to help growth/production via whip.

Barbs: we'll need bigger guns for sure to deal with them, Chariots are just bad for it. HAs could work but it's a detour atm given we might want the Aesthetics line for TGL+Parthenon.

I'm guessing the warrior's purpose from Hadrumetum is to free up the Chariot from scouting settlers duty? He can head to the French with a 2nd Chariot to do some damage there. Pillage gold would be good about now

Here's the Roster situation... been a while since it's been posted.

1. kossin - UP (got it)
2. Stochastic - On deck
3. Mutineer
4. mlinneak
5. timmy827
6. Tatran
7. babybluepants - Just played

I'll give some time for more discussion and post a plan in a day or maybe 2, but I think there aren't 50 ways to go about this -> fix economy, keep choke, block Hammy

 

[babybluepants]

^ I was actually gonna finish my 15t tonight. You can take over if you like. I'm up in another SG this week anyway.

Yeah, I think we could use another warrior or two, so chariots don't have to do scouting/fogbusting.

I was working rice+oasis during the set. Just switched to horse this turn. Bit nervous about leaving Nap be for so long. Maybe check the micro...

BTW, we were splitting the EP between our two choke victims. Don't know if there was a discussion about that before, since I missed a week. I thought it would be better to just put everything on MM. We can switch back if you guys like that better.

 

[timmy827]

Awesome. OK on city F for 1st ring corn. That's probably the last settler for a while since the barbs also made a city on the spot I was advocating for S of France.

Workers at Hadru - there's a lot to do here with the corn, copper, silver road, etc. But I would like vote for open borders with Hammy + finishing a road to DurKur; we could really use the trade routes.

By DG I presume you mean Napoleon right?

 

[babybluepants]

By DG I presume you mean Napoleon right?

Yes, ofc. DG was an opponent in my last two SG's - force of habit.