LK143, emperor, perciles, rainforest

[MyOtherCar]

It's not that strange if you consider there's going to be a city 1 NW of it soon and it will immediately have a 6-food tile to work to whip in its granary. And any troops coming from the capital to that city can use the road since the tile is 2 away from the capital.

Swiss's original red dot was 1NE of the river pigs. Sooooo (is that enough o's?) mentions 1NW (intentionally?), which also grabs the two pigs and has less overlap with Athens. That one might be better.

 

[sooooo]

Swiss's original red dot was 1NE of the river pigs. Sooooo (is that enough o's?) mentions 1NW (intentionally), which also grabs the two pigs and has less overlap with Athens. That one might be better.

Ha, I actually meant 1NE, but maybe 1NW is better. Either should be fine.

 

[mystyfly]

Inherited Turn - 350 BC - 150
Switch to binary science. When running 100%, I work the cottages in Athenes to grow faster. At 0%, I employ two scientists. This creates about the same amount of beakers. And from a GP is Athenes pretty far away. There will be better cities to produce GPs. I also made notes on where the cities on Swiss Paulis dotmap are.

(1) 335 BC
St. Augustine tells us that our treasury is quite empty. Like I wouldn't know

Settler finishes and goes towards sooooo's red dot (near Tartar and the lake) as there is one pig already pastured and it'll have another Pig to grow like weed as well as two hills.
A barb city spawns near SP's white dot (GP-Farm-City) but not where we planned but on the Iron.

(2) 320 BC
Horses come online

IBT
Charlemange wants us to convert to Buddhism. MM is Hindu and Mao has no religion, everyone else is in Buddhism. I agree. Also Charly seems most likely to persue Christianity like he did Confucianism so we'll likely be a nice happy buddhism-block.

(3) 305 BC
Thebes is founded.

(5) 275 BC
Until now I had the slider @ 0%, only Sparta prodcing 1bpt and Athenes 7 or so beakers (2 scientists + lib + academy). Justinian is willing to trade Mathematics for Alphabet.

(6) 260 BC
I go 100% science to get MC in 2.

(8) 230 BC
MC is in > Aesthetics (back to 0% to get some cash)

IBT
Churchill demands MC which I definitely don't give him

the following IBT
Mao tries the same and gets another 'no'.

(11) 185 BC
We get our first Quest, 'Horse whispering'. (We must build 7 stables. We can get +1 food form the stables, a number of horse archers or promotions for mounted IIRC).

IBT
Mao wants us to stop trading with Sitting Bull, his worst enemy. NO, N-O man!

Mansa wants us to adopt Hinduism. No, I'd rather stay alive dude.

(15) 125 BC
Nothing more eventful happens.
We have some Phalanxes near Tartar and should be able to capture it in 2 turns at least. The other Barb city is currently defended by 2 axes (one of the initially 3 travelled to defend Tartar...). To help us capture it, Sparta is building a Chariot.
In 3 turns, Thebes will be able to whip the granary.
I didn't start any new settlers but another worker at Athenes. It has partially built a barracks to grow to 7 and should finish it once the worker is finished.
Our fogbusting works very well atm but is also costly. We should settle 2-3 more cities and retreat our Phalanxes into our borders. Let Sparta build 2 Chariots and capture that Barb city on the iron (cash for free is nice). I don't know about Tartar, probabely keep it. But there is no rush in attacking it I think.
We should settle white dot ASAP and run those scientists.
Techwise, we may get Mysthicism for free which raises the WFYABTA-limits. But as there were only few techtrades and the AI forgets those trades over time, I think we might take it.
Note how MM is settling towards us. We need a city to block some land.
Remember we can ask for gifts from AIs that are at least 'Pleased'.
We should consider closing our borders with the Malinese as they might end up as everyone's worst enemy (if Mao doesn't beat them to it...).

Map:

Spoiler :

Relations, techscreen:

Spoiler :

The Save:
View attachment LK143 BC-0125.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Good work

I'd trade in Calendar, probably with Mansa, seeing as he'll be dogpiled sooner or later and I wouldn't try to block off his expansion for the same reason. Let him improve the tiles for us to take later

I'm OOP from tomorrow until Friday inclusive, btw.

 

[MyOtherCar]

I'm OOP from tomorrow until Friday inclusive, btw.

Ok, we'll swap if necessary to keep things going, if that's allright.

 

[Swiss Pauli]

Ok, we'll swap if necessary to keep things going, if that's allright.

Seeing as I played just before mystyfly I shouldn't think that'll be needed!

 

[MyOtherCar]

Errr, yes, I don't suppose the game moves along that fast.

Those names are so alike, I mean, they both start with an S.

 

[MyOtherCar]

A dotmap for your viewing pleasure, just because I wanted to make one.
I just put in some city sites to grab most visible resources. The most northern city is a guess, I believe there are a lot of other resources nearby (total of 7 food resources). Orange is just a filler. White dot and Tartar first, imo.

 

[LKendter]

125 BC
With having $117 I drop science to 50% to take the bleeding to very minor.
Keeping all these barb busters is hurting our finances. I am surprised that we are already paying for unit supply. What is worse is that we have open pathways to cities with joke for a defense. I don't understand how people can feel comfortable with situation, and having little military being built.

Looking at the map there must be another barb city near Tartar. I can't think of any other reason why a road is leaving the city.


35 BC
We pick up $31 for razing the barb city at the pig overload zone.


55 AD
(IT) I get reminder that they didn't hire Nimoy back for the voiceovers. Sorry Sid, but Nimoy sounds much better.
"It's the economy, stupid" comes to mind, and I start research on currency.



=======================

New Updates
Our current military is 115,000 and 6th for soldiers. We still need improvement here.

I didn't build any settlers. I would like to keep the southeastern by city by copper. With the mountain range it gives a nice barb safety zone.
In addition Mansa isn't that far away, and I don't want him stealing the copper. SoL would be very powerful on this map.

Our production is improved thanks to several forged completing.

We have another scientist in 11 turns that I like to merge into Athens. That would give us some beakers no matter what happens with the science rate. We need courts after currency to start to recover the economy.


Roster
LKendter
Sooooo (currently playing)
MyOtherCar (on deck)
Swiss Pauli (skip Mar 12 to Mar 15)
Mystyfly

Remember 15 peace (including phony wars) / 10 heavy war turns per round. STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

Win target: Open

Planned wars - None

 

[mystyfly]

We pick up $31 for razing the barb city at the pig overload zone.

I think we'll need to resettle Tartar now. It was a very nice spot, coastal (not that much worth here but still), on a river with four ressources. In case we follow MOC's dotmap, it also fits in very nicely.

With having $117 I drop science to 50% to take the bleeding to very minor.
Keeping all these barb busters is hurting our finances. I am surprised that we are already paying for unit supply. What is worse is that we have open pathways to cities with joke for a defense. I don't understand how people can feel comfortable with situation, and having little military being built.

Besides finishing the Granary in our eastern city (dunno the name...) and whipping one in Thebes, training one and half of a worker, every build was a unit
Also, there is very little risk to be attacked by another AI (MM isn't really the war-maniac. I think he'll have a job defending what he has now). And due to fogbusting, which is very efficient atm, we don't need to be afraid of Barbs, no risk there. The only thing that could break throught our lines would be barb axes. But our phalanxes get free shock and I started building a chariot so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[LKendter]

I think we'll need to resettle Tartar now. It was a very nice spot, coastal (not that much worth here but still), on a river with four ressources. In case we follow MOC's dotmap, it also fits in very nicely.

Tartar is still there. The city I razed was size 1, and founded on iron. This was the site at the west edge of the map with GP farm or GT potential.

Sounds like I should have posted a picture...

 

[mystyfly]

ok, 'pig overload', right, must've overlooked that
Anyone against keeping Tartar? Right that's settled then.

 

[sooooo]

OK, got it, possibly for tonight.

 

[MyOtherCar]

125 BC
What is worse is that we have open pathways to cities with joke for a defense. I don't understand how people can feel comfortable with situation, and having little military being built.

Building enough military in peace times is one of my weaknesses: I almost allways get DOW'd to find out I'm last in military. <makes note to oneself>

 

[MyOtherCar]

Took a look at the save. Athens is starving a bit because it's working the bananas again instead of the rice. Looks like Charly is going for our production city (barb city I forgot the name of).

 

[sooooo]

I do some mming to our cities. I force Athens to grow to size 8 (unhapiness) in order to hopefully to a 4-pop whip on the forge it is building in the future, but growing slowly while working an extra cottage not the bananas because that will make it grow just before the scientist is produced. Thebes is one of our few cities with decent production so I don't want it starting on a library at the moment. I will put 1 turn into it to size 4 (nice as it has 4 good tiles) and then switch to a settler. Sparta seems to be fine.

I check the tech screen and disagree about giving away our metal casting monopoly just for calendar. That tech at the moment will get us 1 extra food for the bananas, not good enough for losing the monopoly. Maybe once we have cities on the sugar and more banana cities.

Once Mansa's hindu missionary has done his stuff I'm going to cancel OBs with Mali because someone is bound to ask us to do it anyway.

T1: A window of opportunity at Tartar! Presumably unseen troops attacked it and left it with an archer at 2/3 health and an axe at 2/5 health. There is also an archer at 0.6 health outside the city. I send in our cover phalanx and he wins! Now our shock phalanx can kill the axe and we take the city.



With our plunder I increase science to 100%.

T2: Grr, that wounded archer kills our wounded phalanx outside the city. The phalanx defending tartar comes out and kills him.

T5: Hindu missionary does it's thing, I close borders with Mali. I open them with China, giving us an extra commerce in each of our cities from the trade routes. Could be able to poach the production city soon. There's a Malinese settler party heading to us, he could be going for filler banana city.

T6: Sparta finished sword, starts another. Ooh, Mao goes to Buddhism. Everyone is buddhist except Mansa. Nice, Mansa's axe kills an archer, leaving it with 1 archer and 1 worker against our phalanx and 2 chariots. But there is a barb archer outside the city. Hopefully we can kill the archer with our 2 chariots.

1st chariot withdraws, second wins!



We now have a free worker and nice city with 2 improved tiles and a granary. Phalanx reinforces the city.

Turn all our cities to commerce to get currency 1 turn earlier.

T7: Orace built in Byzantium. Currency in, last player has set it to go for CoL, which doesn't seem to get us anything useful so I go for mysticism (1 turn).

T8: Corinth barracks -> phalanx. Mysticism in, start ... err... polytheism. I'm going to head us towards getting the great library since we can have marble hooked up soon.

Currency is not a monopoly (Justinian has it) so I trade it away. Amazingly Mansa is no one's worst enemy so I give it to him for Code of Laws. I also give it to Sitting Bull for calendar.



T9: Kill barb sword with a phalanx. There are a couple more barb cities in the north.

T10: Hire 2 scienists each at Sparta and Corinth. Science is +ve at 20% but 46 beakers per turn is still OK.

T11: Thebes finishes settler, starts worker. Since this city has 4 great tiles and nothing else, it should stay at size 4 and be a worker/settler pump for a while. Athens spawns a GS who is settled, whip a forge here for 4 population.

Beg Silk from Justinian.

T12: Athens forge -> phalanx.

T13: Athens phalanx -> phalanx. Sitting Bull offers his deers for our spare pigs. I accept since I prob can't get this deal from asking him due to the trade bug. Useful for the relations if not for the health.

T15: Sparta sword -> chariot. Found everyone's favourite catalogue retail store.





Our coffers are probably lower than LKendter would like them but we can raze a barb city next turn for plunder.

I have built quite a lot of military, I think we can afford to put our cities onto workers for a while to mend the economy. Corinth in particular needs some heavy cottaging. Please no one build courthouses yet - they will save us about 2-3 coins for a lot of hammers. If we want to improve the economy then we need workers, not courthouses. Possibly Athens could use a market.

Our scouting warrior seems to be amusingly trapped.

 

[LKendter]

New Updates
Our current military as of 100 AD is 115,000 and 6th for soldiers.
Our current military as of 325 AD is 128,000 and 6th for soldiers.

Economy watch at 325 AD is +12 at 0% science.
I know we have some scientists, but we are still IMHO in serious danger of falling behind in tech.

I can tell Sooooo and I have a very different view of when to stop expansion. There is NO way I would have founded Argos. I know Sooooo is a better player then I am, but I hate getting the game in a situation that is stressing me out.

We are in NON-expansion mode at this point. 10% science at positive cash proves we've over expanded. I agree with Sooooo that Cherokee MUST BURN. We need the cash.

We already have 7 workers for 7 cities, so I don't agree to hold of courts indefinitely. We can use a few more workers, but our economy is so trashed paying the support is going to be very painful.
We may be forced down to 0% science.

This is going to sound weird from me, but we must STOP building military. Units already cost us $12/turn, and we only have $12/turn spare at 0% science. That is without paying for more workers.

I've read Sooooo about the Great Library. Sooooo, where do you propose we build it? The best I could find with pure shield mode is 13 shields in Sparta. I don't see anywhere in our empire with decent production.


Roster
LKendter
Sooooo
MyOtherCar (currently playing)
Swiss Pauli (on deck?) (Skip Mar 12 to Mar 15)
Mystyfly

Remember 15 peace (including phony wars) / 10 heavy war turns per round. STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

Win target: Open

Planned wars - None

 

[mystyfly]

I think we should try the GL. The Oracle going well in the ADs shows that there is no-one persuing wonders that hard. Nice job building units and taking those barb cities.
Worker priority is now Argos. I disagree with LK as this will be our GP-farm and will produce quite some science. It'll grow fast and high. Any way we could build the GL there? Would be great. At least it has a plains/iron tile as well as pigs on a grassland hill. We might mine the pigs first until we either get the GL there or we lose it. Sadly, there are no forests to chop. I think we'll have a real chance as the AIs often delay Aest > Lit.
If we try that, we'll want to whip a Library in Argos and start on the GL right away. It should grow fast enought without the Granary.

I think we'll be able to increase the slider again once we get that silver city and those Cottages developed in Athenes (I suggest not running any scientists after the GS, and build an Academy in Argos) so we should head to CS after Lit. When we hit CS, we only need Machinery for our mighty Shock-maces to do a first blow vs Mali or China.

Too bad china went Buddhist too. It really wouldn't hurt having more indefils civs on the map.

---

Just a detail: I don't think begging for ressources is not that much of a great idea. I prefer asking for techs or gold than ressources that can be cancelled later (and usually in the worst moment).

 

[sooooo]

OK, I'll try to answer some questions.

Economy watch at 325 AD is +12 at 0% science.
I know we have some scientists, but we are still IMHO in serious danger of falling behind in tech.

I can tell Sooooo and I have a very different view of when to stop expansion. There is NO way I would have founded Argos. I know Sooooo is a better player then I am, but I hate getting the game in a situation that is stressing me out.

I see 10% science as more of a temporary trough rather than a norm. Expansion goes though periods of struggling for gold to periods of getting cities online and contributing to the economy. At the moment we have 3 new cities, which in the future will be very productive for us. We just need to get them online quickly. Those 2 barb cities needed to be captured otherwise the AIs would have got them. And I see no point in wasting hammers in razing them and refouding, especially as they will become very productive. Argos is just going to be so productive for us that the earlier we found it the earlier we get the benefits from that city.

EDIT: Also, with plunder and money to beg from 5 pleased AIs, I think we'll be in deficit research for a while and not have to actually run 10% science for very long.

Teching will be quite slow while we improve our cities, but I think we should use our next scientist to lightbulb philosophy and trade it around. That should keep us nicely competitive.

We already have 7 workers for 7 cities, so I don't agree to hold of courts indefinitely. We can use a few more workers, but our economy is so trashed paying the support is going to be very painful.
We may be forced down to 0% science.

Disagree about this point. You think a building as expensive as a courthouse is worth the hammers to save 3 gpt? You'd be better off putting those hammers into wealth or research. But better into workers. Regarding the workers, I really think we need more to make our cities productive quicker. There is a lot of jungle to chop out there and cottages to build. They are worth the support cost, I'd like to see at least 2 workers per city so that means we need 7 more.

I've read Sooooo about the Great Library. Sooooo, where do you propose we build it? The best I could find with pure shield mode is 13 shields in Sparta. I don't see anywhere in our empire with decent production.

The great library is a possibility. The main reason I went for literature is for the two epics, but the GL could be good. If we were to revolt to OR, then Sparta would get the bonus, and it has a forge too. Unfortunately that would mean founding a city to access the marble, which personally I would be in favour of doing so now but possibly you would not be comfortable in founding quite yet. I just think that being philosophical then the great library would just be great for us.

We should send our most experienced soldier out to fight some barbs and get the experience needed for the heroic epic.

 

[LKendter]

Disagree about this point. You think a building as expensive as a courthouse is worth the hammers to save 3 GPT? You'd be better off putting those hammers into wealth or research. But better into workers. Regarding the workers, I really think we need more to make our cities productive quicker. There is a lot of jungle to chop out there and cottages to build. They are worth the support cost; I'd like to see at least 2 workers per city so that means we need 7 more.

I don't understand why you again mentioned workers when I agreed we needed a few more workers. I never defined exactly what "a few more" was, but I agree 7 isn't enough. At it is all seven were building zero cottages. We need some cottages now.

Please don't suggest wealth or research. Outside of early desperation economy, or very late game (particularly culture) I don't use these options. I personally avoid these options this early if possible.
We will have to agree to disagree on courts. With BTS and getting the spy points they are even more important. You comments make it sound like you never want to build courts, and I disagree 100% with that. If I read the comments wrong, and you want to delay them that I can agree with while we fix the worker situation.