LK147 - world map, China

[ToddMarshall]

Inherrited turn: Not much to say really. I check around to see where everyone is at, and we're obviously really behind. Welcome to Civ III Deity.

IT- Bejing: Grainery -> Settler

Greeks complete Colossus

1) 1950 -

IT - Greeks ask us to leave, we lie and say we will

Shanghai expands boarders

2) 1910 -

IT - Greeks evict us to where we were going anyway

3) 1870 -

IT -

4) 1830 - We pop a hut in Siberia and get 25g

IT - Greeks ask us to leave. We lie and say we will

Russia completes the Oracle

5) 1790 -

IT - Bronze working comes in. I select Myst as our new forever tech.

6) 1750 - Everyone already has Bronze, so that's useless for trading unfortunately. Too bad we didn't go for something like Myst, but, you never can be sure what the AI is going to do in the ancient era iirc.

IT - Beijing Settler -> Warrior

7) 1725 - Settler heads for Lee's Red Dot.

IT - Greeks kick us out again

Shanghai: Grainery -> settler

8) 1700 - send warrior from Beijing to shanghai

IT - We meet France. They lack Pottery, but wont give us anything other than 13g for it, so no deal.

9) 1675 - Canton founded at Red Dot.

IT -

10) 1650 - Pop a hut in Siberia and get a warrior.

As 2nd player, I'm PROBABLY entitled to 15 turns? Dono, but I'm going to stop at ten since I'm not sure.

We're now WAAAAAAAAYYY behind. One nugget of good news is we can now see a Russian boarder, and I'm going to guess we'll also contact the Germans very shortly too. I didn't take any pictures because, well, really, there was nothing much to see.

In the wouth, we're going to have to pick either the 2 cows or a cow and a horse for city number 4, as there was nothing exciting revealed by exploring there.

.

 

[LKendter]

LKendter
ToddMarshall (just played)
Greebley (up)
CKS (on deck)

Open slot - who wants it?


We can use some more explorers. I suspect there are some more city sites around Canton. I hope Mongolia won't beat us to the area too much.
The next site should be something in the south doing something with those cows.


We also need to work our way south toward Egypt. Even civ we meet brings self-research closer.

There are plenty of goals going on. I also want to make sure we get those silks in Siberia. The city will be crap, but we need more happy sources and trade potential. Resource trades often help grabbing another tech from somebody NEARBY.

 

[ToddMarshall]

The biggest problem with the 2 cows is I don't think we can make a city to get the both that isn't going to be a flip risk. We probably just have to risk it. In retrospect, it's too bad Shanghai isn't one south, so it could have 2 cows + wheat and not be a flip risk. Probably could have even skipped the granary with that grass cow, but so it goes.

The warrior being made at Beijing should probably explore around Canton.

 

[LKendter]

In retrospect, it's too bad Shanghai isn't one south, so it could have 2 cows + wheat and not be a flip risk.

That is the trouble with panic settlements. When I saw that Mongolian settler so close I didn't want to risk losing the furs.

The warrior being made at Beijing should probably explore around Canton.

I agree - I would like to know if the river heading north can get us another good city. We can really use the river cities for the bonus commerce.

I can tell I am running an SG again. I am checking this forum more often.

 

[CKS]

With everyone so crowded, we aren't going to have a chance to select our city sites leisurely, and things would be rather more unpleasant if Mongolia settled Shanghai. Around Canton does look somewhat promising, and I agree with the need for the Siberian silks.

Note: My computer died over the weekend, but I've got Civ3 installed on my laptop, so I think I'll be okay. I haven't gotten the new units installed on the laptop yet, but I don't anticipate any difficulties. I'll let you know if there are problems.

 

[ToddMarshall]

To be clear, I'm not criticizing the decision to place the city there at the time it was placed. You do what you have to do based on available information at the time and move on. It's not like we haven't all settled cities we wished we could move later. That doesn't make it unfortunate for us that it's there though

 

[LKendter]

I PMed Greebly. He is usually quick to respond.

Hopefully we hear something today.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, I have got it. Should have time tonight.

 

[LKendter]

Ya, I have got it. Should have time tonight.

Sounds good - find us a nice new city by those horses.
Avoiding culture overlap, I wonder if we may want to settler on them?

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Looks good.

IBT: Random French movement spotted. Warrior Built.

1625 BC: Start on Barracks in the capitol since they are fairly cheap for us and we want some vet Spear soon. I will build one more regular warrior in Canton and then start a Barracks there too.

IBT: Asked to leave by the Mongols.

1600 BC: not much.

IBT: We get the next Settler.

1575 BC: Settler sent toward horses.

IBT: Canton Warrior built and start Barracks.

1550 BC: Another Mongol town appear hemming us in.

IBT: Barracks built and we start a Spear.

I525 BC: Debate on what to do and decide to grab the spot that will get the cows with a temple - where I am standing.. I think we will want at least a short war with the Mongols as some towns will be isolated by us. Town starts a temple.

With this town we have hopes of getting the horses.

1500 BC: Barracks finished and started a Spear.

1475 BC: not much

IBT: Great Library started by Germany. I had forgotten just how fast the AI gets techs when there are huts out there. Its been a while since I played with them.

1450 BC: Finish the spear. Start another. We can get HBR from India, so I do the trade and then trade HBR for Alphabet and 23 of their 27 gold.

Checking Germany they have writing and mathematics as well as iron working. An exploring settler got barbs. Its one of two in the frozen wastes.



1425 BC: Our next settler is moving toward the Horses. Another hut in the frozen wastes also gets Barbarians. Move the warrior so it will get attacked by the Barbarians. Defense is better in the woods. Finds another Barbarian.

IBT: We defend well against the two Barbarians and become Vets.

1400 BC: Move the other Warrior in the path of the Barbarians (You all remember the bug where barbarians can only see in a NW to SE direction?)

IBT: Our other Warrior goes to Vet when attacked by a Barbarian.
There was a huge Wonder cascade. Mongols get Pyramids in their capitol, Germany get the Great Library, America got Statue of Zeus, Mausoleum of Mooses when to Babylon

1375 BC: Finish the Barracks in Canton and start on a Spear.
Capitol finished its Spear.

Notes:
I was planning on putting our next settler right on the Horses and then connecting them up. I think our best strategy is a war with the Mongols to get the cities close to us. We can build Horses and Spear to deal with them.

The Settler had a defender but I mis-clicked and it went the wrong way. I sometimes reload misclicks, but as there was no danger, I left this one as is.

If we do decide on war, I think the next player should switch Nanking to a Barracks.

As you can see by the picture below Mandalgovi is really a thorn in our side. It was a very difficult decision on whether to send the settler back (several turns and horses lost) or be aggressive. I think a war to pick up the close by Mongol towns is the best strategy here. The fact that our settler town of Shanghai already having overlap tipped the balance to war for me. A flip of that town would be very bad for us. If we do war, our goal would be to take out the nearby towns as a minumum.

Also taking out the Mongol captiol would give us the Pyramids.

I would work at trading for Iron Working next. Knowing where the iron is, is a priority.

 

[Greebley]

I have gotten into the habit of using bigger pictures - I used to reduce them. If the picture size is an issue for anybody, I can make them fit within 800 pixels again (78%).

 

[ToddMarshall]

Looks good.

That new Mongol city is annoying. I considered sending the Canton settler there instead but didn;t because it was a much lenghtier trip. I wonder if I'd sent the settler for Canton there if we could have gotten there before them and made them put that city somewhere else. I think we ould have beat them by one turn. Oh well, can't go back now.

A war with Mongolia in the nearish future is now inevitable imo. Fortunately, they seem to be lagging behind the leaders, so they won't be able to buy a whole lot of friends. We probably do want to grab a few more city sites to the east first though? We definitely don't want to wait TOOO long though. Been a while since I played C III so I'll defer these sorts of decisions to those less rusty than myself.

 

[CKS]

I'm okay with the bigger pictures, but if you could put them in spoiler tags, it would be easier to read the text.

I should be able to play tomorrow, so war/peace thoughts would be useful before then.

I'm leery of early war on deity, but Mongolia is going to cause us problems, and the pyramids are a big carrot.

 

[LKendter]

ROSTER:

LKendter (on deck)
ToddMarshall
Greebley (just played)
CKS (up) (already got it)

Open slot - who wants it?

I see a warrior in Babylon. Please keep it moving west. We still have 3 civs in Africa to meet. The Zulu can be backwards sometimes, so I want to meet them. Finding the backwards civ(s) is what often starts us catching up on this map.

I want to see the iron situation before I comment either way on war. Early war on deity scares me to begin with, and having no idea about the Mongols and iron makes it worse. We do know Mongolia has horses. Plus we lack bombard units.

I still would like to get another unit exploring near Canton. I would hate to miss a decent city site in that area.

We want to keep track of Mongolia and the tech situation. Staying near the back of the pack is good for us, and very much affects my opinion of going to war in the medium future.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, knowing the iron situation is pretty important. We should try to trade for that tech next if possible. In the mean time building Spear and Horsemen will still be good as someone may declare war on us, even if we don't.

For getting the road to the Horses up, we have two workers in the area.

 

[darski]

just signing in as lurker... looks interesting.

 

[ToddMarshall]

I think I'd have to agree on waiting for iron, if for no other reason than we'd want to know where to attack to get a source if we don't have any of our own. We probably want to grab more sites to the east first anyhow, otherwise they'll just grab them making for a longer, and possibly more difficult war.

 

[Greebley]

I'm okay with the bigger pictures, but if you could put them in spoiler tags, it would be easier to read the text.

I should be able to play tomorrow, so war/peace thoughts would be useful before then.

I'm leery of early war on deity, but Mongolia is going to cause us problems, and the pyramids are a big carrot.

I try to describe the regular turns for the first part, but include a 'Notes' section at the end with 'big picture' stuff - where I see us going or any info on the turn and what to do next that I think is important.

-------

If the Mongols have iron and we don't then the next step would be to get Mathematics and Catapults. With that we can still win once we have sufficient troops and cats.

I don't see a need to rush into war, but only attack when we are ready - I think we are in agreement on that.

Also keep an eye out for signs that the Mongols are at war with someone else. That uses up their initial units and can enable us to attack when their troops are tied up elsewhere. Before we have an embassy, the way to tell is if they gain another civs town or lose a town.

 

[CKS]

Well, I spent most of my turns being kicked out of other countries.

Turn 0: Swap Beijing to a curragh; I'm not fond of 27 shield spears, which is what we'll have until we grow.
IBT: Booted from Babylon. Indians start ToA, Shanghai grows.

Turn 1: Chop at Nanking. Settler to horses, spear towards it, road towards it.
IBT: Beijing finishes a curragh and starts another. Shanghai finishes a settler and starts another. ToA is being built several places.

Turn 2: Build Tsingtao on the horses. Start barracks. Settler starts northish, in hopes that there will be something around Canton.
IBT: ZZ

Turn 3: Not much.
IBT: Booted from France. Beijing builds a curragh and starts a spear. Canton finishes a spear and starts a warrior.

Turn 4: Same
IBT: ZZ

Turn 5: Beijing is size 5, so lux to 20%.
IBT: Beijing spear to archer, Canton warrior to archer.

Turn 6: Around Canton isn't looking good. I know we want to grow west, but I see no good sites, so I send the settler to the game/gold east of Beijing. The next settler can go NE of Beijing by the sugar.
IBT: Booted by India. First GLH notice.

Turn 7: Not much.
IBT: Beijing archer to settler, Shanghai settler to warrior, to grow a bit.

Turn 8: Not much.
IBT: Booted by Babylon. Canton archer to worker.

Turn 9: Build Xinjian.
IBT: Shanghai warrior to settler.

Turn 10: Same.

The Mongols and the Greeks are still trailing in techs, but we can't buy anything with our current cash situation. There is a small open patch between Babylon and Persia. If it gets filled, we may be able to be booted past Babylon.

 

[LKendter]

[1125 BC]
Mongolia is definitely a pain. They stole the spot north of Canton.
(IT) Canton is getting a temple next. With that nearby Mongolian city I want to get the cultural jump.


[1100 BC]
The only advantage when the AI puts a city on the opposite side. We have a Mongolian worker building roads by Shanghai to get to his other city. I
never argue with free improvements.
We get an Indian worker for $80 and $2/turn. They are slow, but I love the no maintenance part of foreign workers.


[1025 BC]
Still haven't gotten past Greece, but at least the new boot puts us in a different spot to continue gaining map knowledge.

[950 BC]
It leaves us flat broke, but I give France $25/turn and $13 for iron working.
Mongolia HAS iron. We see iron in Japan, but don't have the ships to get there.
There is a distant source in Siberia.
There is now NO question of war with Mongolia, the question is when. Tabriz will be a raze and replace. No way I want to risk our future iron source
to a possible flip.


Summary:
We badly need to contact Africa. There is a ship south of Tsingtao and another one passing the pain Mongolia city. Both of these really need to keep
moving west. We still haven't contacted Egypt, Zulu or Songhai.

There are two ships heading toward America. Keep the moving east. Two speed ships may not make it, but we need to try. We really need more contacts.


These are the new cities I planted. The worker should build those two road segments to both help our income, and get them on-line.
The goal is to contact the silks via blue road. Red dot and pink dot will get the silks. I have one settler pair already heading there. I recommend pink dot FIRST. I don't want the AI stealing the silks. They will also give us trading material for nearby civs to get more techs.



The below is the nearest source of unclaimed iron. The city will forever junk, but we still have a debate about going that way.




ROSTER:

LKendter (just played)
ToddMarshall (up)
Greebley (on deck)
CKS

Around ten turns is fine. If key points are a turn or two before / after, feel free to adjust that count.