LotR 3 - Emperor Training

[Arathorn]

Well, no discussion (caused in part, I believe, by the forums being down). If there are any questions/comments, I can't get to them until probably tomorrow night, so let's just go on to the next set of turns.

Brian J, I believe that's you. 10 turns should take us to 2550 BC, I believe.

Good luck all!
Arathorn

 

[BrianJ]

Originally posted by Arathorn
Well, no discussion (caused in part, I believe, by the forums being down). If there are any questions/comments, I can't get to them until probably tomorrow night, so let's just go on to the next set of turns.

Brian J, I believe that's you. 10 turns should take us to 2550 BC, I believe.

Good luck all!
Arathorn

Alright, I'll play sometime this weekend.

 

[BrianJ]

Preturn:
Surprise at my ding for lack of exploration. My second turn had much more explored than

this one, although I didn't find the land bridge until my last turn.

Where to put the settler? Here is the next big test. I'm leading towards the dyes for the

following reasons:
1)Closer to Russians
2)Luxuries in our empire.

Another possibility is directly west/sw to get the central location just past the gold.

OTOH there is the cattle squares which will grow fast and pump out more settlers quickly.

And then there is the incense in the desert.

So many decisions, only one settler..

I have a quick look at the cities. I'd like Sal to have one of the wheat, but as it will

expand next turn anyway I don't change it yet.

In the end I let things stand and press enter.

(1)2950 BC:
Salamanca completes its settler and starts a warrior.
NF also starts a warrior. I'm not sure this is the right decision here but I have 10 turns

to change my mind.

The 2 workers on the hill start a road. Both the worker and the settler in Sal move south

across the river. Looking forward to Construction as they wade slowly across, taking their

entire move.

We meet India. Ghandi has BW and Alphabet to our Pottery and Warrior Code. He offers BW for

both our techs, or 10 gold(all of his treasury) for just one. I decline.

The Indian military outnumbers ours.. no kidding..

Again, finding Mountains sw of Moscow..

I consider moving the worker in NF off wheat and onto the desert, so that Sal can get the

wheat, but Sal does not have a spare worker to use the wheat. Sal is growing slowly but I

don't want to lose the production. OTOH if it expands faster it can get back to where it

was.

Question is, what is more important to me right now, Salamanca expanding fast or Niagara

Falls? I don't have a good answer for this so I leave it, allowing NF to grow in 1 turn.

(2)2900 BC:
More decisions. The worker south of Sal moves to the unfinished grasslands square. Settler

south onto a mountain, as I've decided to go for the dyes.

Other scouts head south. One, away from the Indian city, the other heading south of Moscow.

NF has expanded. It is now working the hill next to Sal. I move the wheat worker to the

desert. the Worker will road and mine the desert next. Now will not expand for 20 turns.

Salamanca is now using the wheat. It loses production but grows in 4 turns from 9. This

costs us income and 8 shields. (loss of 2 sh/p/t until Sal expands). Right decision or

weed?

(3) 2850 BC:
A Barb camp pops up south of Moscow. A Russian settler, unguarded is starting to head

south.. Poor sap.. Our scout will head in this direction no longer. It heads west

instead.

The Russian Spear is at the border of NF. Our worker is blocking its movements into our

territory.

(4)2800 BC:
Sal completes its Warrior, I order up another. Our third city will need protection. The

Russian Spear moves along our border.

Warrior 2 heads for NF.

The settler is now in the 'optimal' location for a city according to the map layout, ie no

squares wasted or overlapping. However, this position sucks. It has 2 useless Coast

squares. It can either move south directly onto a Dye or it can move se onto a grass. I'l

decide on its move next turn.

(5)2750 BC:
We meet Egypt through one of their units south-west of Moscow. We may trade all our gold to

buy Masonry or BW. OTOH she has 2 workers for sale. More slaves? She wants 30 gold for 1

worker. 49 (all of it) and 1gpt for 2. Hardly worth it. I don't think our finances justify

it at the moment.

Our settler moves directly onto a Dye. Why? Automatic Jungle clearing. Mountains are

only wasted squares between Sal and the new city.

Scout south of India moves nw to a mountain, revealing more jungle. West of Moscow, our

scout spots some grasslands.



(6)2710 BC:
NF completes its Warrior.Starts a Settler. The extra warrior can be used for escorting the settler.

Desert worker starts Mine.

Worker south of Sal starts a mine on the roaded square. Was this weed?

Grand River formed, on the Dyes. Strangely enough it is not on a river, but on the coast.. Its first production is Warrior.

Scouts take advantage of hilly terrain to see surroundings.


(7)2670 BC:
Sal completes its Warrior, starts another Settler. It is now size 3.

Workers on the hill start mining.

Second warrior in NF fortifies waiting for the settler.

Scout near India slogs through the Jungle again.

NF has expanded its Culture borders.

(8)2630 BC:
Scout movements. Not much to say here. Just noticed Kiev is founded where the Barb camp was.

Ouch, just noticed I've been running at 3.2.5.. Well was bound to forget something wasn't I? Now at 5.5.0.. Watch unhappiness here! All peasants are 'content'.

(9)2590 BC:
Our warrior fortifies in Salamanca as a barb appears north-west of Salamanca.

Our scout near India spots the edge of the Jungle in the distance!
As Salamanca is about to grow, I increase the Luxury tax. 4.5.1 now.

(10)2550 BC:
Well, the promised end of the Jungle is a coastline.. At least our competitors to the west are screwed in land..

Barb is north of Sal.

Well, thats my first official turn. Hopefully not too much weed..

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/LOTR3_training_2550BC.sav

EDIT: Grand River. I called them Dyes, Steve called them Spices, they are in fact Silk..

I feel bad about the luxury rate.. I could have been rich enough to buy those 2 Egyptian workers!

 

[Snaproll]

Hi guys, I'm back from my trip and I'm officially involved again. I'm sorry about not being able to participate. Arathorn, do you want me to do my shadow turns from this point or should I go back and do them all from the beginning?

 

[Arathorn]

Charliehoke,

I'd just do the 3000-2550 BC set and call that good enough. This goes for everybody, if/when you miss a turn or two, don't sweat it and just go on with the next turn. I'm not certain I'll have too much time to look at your game, charlie, but I can make some comments from the report.

I've gotten the others that are up and will hopefully look at them later tonight.

Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]

3000 - No catch of science rate. 20% is higher than it needs to be. This was discussed a couple times in various places in reviews. The lux rate was specifically mentioned by the previous player. If at all possible, try to read the turn proceding yours immediately before playing -- this helps refresh such reminders.

Sala on warrior - definitely. NF on warrior? Read my rant to Arizona_Steve on his 3500-3000 BC turn again. NF has food to burn and few shields. It should NOT make warriors -- it should be making settlers and/or workers.

You decline to trade with India. This can be a sound move, but we actually have techs they want. Right now, in 2950, our two techs are worth at least one of theirs. In another turn (or two), since they have contact with China who has the same techs (we just made India's price go down, BTW), our two techs will be worth NOTHING. Gotta use them NOW. Since you didn't, those techs got us nothing.

Question is, what is more important to me right now, Salamanca expanding fast or Niagara Falls? I don't have a good answer for this so I leave it, allowing NF to grow in 1 turn.[\quote]
Both, ideally. They have the one wheat square which can be traded back and forth. NF should grow fast with or without that one square and will get happiness problems much faster than Salamanca. If it's not a will-grow-this-turn-if-on-the-wheat-and-won't-off-it situation for NF, I would try to leave Salamanca on the food. Sala can better deal with the happiness concerns and has the shields to make settlers faster to send that population elsewhere.

2950 - No mention of lux tax? Did you forget to turn it down? When you've been reminded and everything? Tut-tut.

2900 - Move the wheat citizen to the desert???????????? NO!!!!!!!! We want FOOD and GROWTH! The one shield from the desert is lost to waste anyway. You are slowing down the growth of NF from a couple turns to 20 turns for absolutely NO reason. If Sala gets the shared wheat (not a bad choice), then NF should work a flood plain for the food there, so it can still grow at a reasonable clip. NF should ALWAYS have a citizen on the northern wheat (only exception is growth in one turn anyway and when an extra shield/commerce would be available elsewhere).

The Sala citizen on wheat costs 8 shields short-term but 4 turns after the pop increases, those 8 shields are returned -- and then we get interest on that investment. Definitely not weed.

2800 - This position (forest on the river) sucks?????????? How/why? Because it has lots of good growth potential and is on a river? As Homer Simpson would say, "Sucks like a fox"! I'll take that "sucky" position over an awful lot of other locations any day. See the reply to Arizona_Steve in the Shadows thread for a more in-depth discussion.

2750 - 30 gold for 1 worker is most assuredly worth it. The extra roads alone will pay for that in no time. 49 gold and 1 gpt for both is quite steep. It might be worth that, but it's hard to say. Here is where your lax of attention to the lux/science slider has hurt. If you had a bit more gold in hand as ready-cash, you could've bought the two workers for 55 gold, which is a great deal. Since we didn't have the cash and had to go to gpt, Cleo won't give as good a deal and we suffer. Now, we're at least one slave short of where we could be. Not buying the one for 30 gold, too, is just at this point, as the extra roads/shields/food from the worker improvements would more than pay for itself in less than 50 turns. Our finances more require doing it than not doing it.

2710 - Mining the desert. The goal of workers is to improve the BEST lands near a city -- that is, the lands that actually deserve to be worked. A desert is very low priority and shouldn't be worked for many MANY turns. That worker is essentially wasting his time.

The mine on a nice grassland south of Salamanca by the river is not weed, as this square could well see use in the near future. It might not, but it's not a terribly bad choice. At some point, Salamanca is going to have three citizens and NF will need the shared wheat -- this square is the likely candidate for use and a mine won't hurt at all. The road south is also important, but the competing prioirities are close enough to not worry about at this point.

2630 - 5.5.0? Why science suddenly at 50%? Did the few turns saved suddenly become worth a lot of gold? Running the middle-of-the-road in science is a sure way to waste a lot of time and hurt yourself. We were on a 40-turn path, which needed to be completed. Once it was done, a higher rate might have been justified, but at this point, doing so is just . It's too late to really help the time to Mysticism (all the early beakers essentially amount to nothing). Sigh.

2590 - Happiness is checked before growth, so you could've saved the increase in lux tax to 10% until 2550. This is different from Civ2 (and much nicer, IMO). Still, better early than late.

Scouting was very solid. Your luck in not having any scouts killed was nice. The pattern of exploration was pretty good, too.

- 1 (effort)
- 1 (scouting)
- 1 (workers, trade with India)
- 6 (lux tax rate, warrior build in NF, sci rate and "correction", not buying a worker, GR location, NF citizens)

Overall Grade: D-

Arathorn

 

[BrianJ]

Well, my grade is generous based on the amount of weed..

But making mistakes is how you learn right?

I never even think about techs going worthless, the middle of the road science rate or buying workers. For science I'm trying to get the highest rate possible to increase the speed of research.

Running the middle-of-the-road in science is a sure way to waste a lot of time and hurt yourself. We were on a 40-turn path, which needed to be completed. Once it was done, a higher rate might have been justified, but at this point, doing so is just . It's too late to really help the time to Mysticism (all the early beakers essentially amount to nothing). Sigh.

I'm not sure I understand your reasoning here. Not disagreeing with it, just don't really get it..?

Believe me, when I realized I hadn't changed the science rate I was tempted to play my turns over I was so mad!

Good point on the city placement.. I also don't calculate out the potential shields like that either.. which is very necessary at this level.

 

[LKendter]

@brianj - check my comments in the shadow thread for help on spotting good cities and overlap.

About the workers - for about $25 you will get a free 1/2 speed worker for 100s of turns. It has a second purpose - almost more important - slowing down AI development. How much slower will the AI work the land with a less workers?

 

[Arathorn]

Lee -- you get a "Thanks" for the picture showing the city placement issue and a couple for posting the next turn already.

Brian -- You still need to work on file names. Case is important, that is, LOTR3 is not the same as lotr3. This is because I just download from the uploaded file list, because it saves me much time. LOTR3 sorts into a different place from lotr3.

More Brian -- I don't always do the detailed computations/examination of city sites that I did in the review. I do pay careful attention to overlap/growth potential/wasted tiles/shield potential, though, from a short- (pop<6 with basically no improvements), mid- (pop 6-12, no RR, some improvements), and long- (post-RR and hospitals -- how good CAN it get?) term prospective. All play a role and sometimes one is sacrificed for the other. In this case, it was pretty clear which was the best option....

More Brian -- Fast research is nice, but one of the signs of an upper-level player is being comfortable playing at tech parity or even several techs behind -- especially in the Ancient and Middle Ages. Trying to research all your own tech as fast as possible is just a losing proposition. See Charliehoke's turn for some good tech management.

More Brian -- Getting tech first allows one to sell it to all interested bidders, getting things of values (other techs, gold, maps, luxuries, whatever). Getting it last makes it the lowest cost. If we had gone high research at the beginning (like many of the shadow turns did), we would've possibly gotten an expensive tech early and could've bartered it for value. Once the low-tech path was taken, we were hoping to get it for little-to-no-cost (40 commerce, essentially) and maybe get some value out of it. Changing now to researching it at high science levels means all those turns of investment are essentially wasted, as we'll be paying full beaker price for it. And, we'll probably only get it "too late" (meaning other civs have/had it) to fully whore it around for value. Being first has advantages, as does being last. Occasionally, being in the middle works out OK, but it's usually a losing option.
In this case, once we had invested 20 turns, it was more economical to invest another 20 turns than 80 beakers (or whatever the exact number is). We'd paid for half the tech one way (max turn limit), but then you turn us around to paying full price in the other way (beakers). That's poor maintenance of a plan.

More Brian -- You've mentioned a couple times "playing them over". I understand that desire, but I fully applaud your decision to not do so. Better a rightfully-earned failure than a tainted victory. Honesty is important.

General -- Recognizing your weed while doing write-ups is the first step to recognizing them in game play, which usually leads to a dramatic lessening during gameplay. I've definitely noticed this trend in myself -- I'm a better player after SGs (and I still have a long ways to go to consider myself truly "expert"). First, you recognize, then you eliminate.

Let's play on! I'll still take comments/questions on the 2550 reviews, but everybody should feel free to post their results to 2150 (10 turns). Mind those filenames now!

I'll be away from access a fair bit these next couple days, so the full 96 hours might well pass before reviews are posted. This means, NO hurries.

Arathorn

 

[LKendter]

Originally posted by Arathorn
Lee -- you get a "Thanks" for the picture showing the city placement issue and a couple for posting the next turn already.

Actually - was that a turn play ??

 

[BrianJ]

Originally posted by Arathorn

More Brian -- Fast research is nice, but one of the signs of an upper-level player is being comfortable playing at tech parity or even several techs behind -- especially in the Ancient and Middle Ages. Trying to research all your own tech as fast as possible is just a losing proposition. See Charliehoke's turn for some good tech management.

More Brian -- Getting tech first allows one to sell it to all interested bidders, getting things of values (other techs, gold, maps, luxuries, whatever). Getting it last makes it the lowest cost. If we had gone high research at the beginning (like many of the shadow turns did), we would've possibly gotten an expensive tech early and could've bartered it for value. Once the low-tech path was taken, we were hoping to get it for little-to-no-cost (40 commerce, essentially) and maybe get some value out of it. Changing now to researching it at high science levels means all those turns of investment are essentially wasted, as we'll be paying full beaker price for it. And, we'll probably only get it "too late" (meaning other civs have/had it) to fully whore it around for value. Being first has advantages, as does being last. Occasionally, being in the middle works out OK, but it's usually a losing option.
In this case, once we had invested 20 turns, it was more economical to invest another 20 turns than 80 beakers (or whatever the exact number is). We'd paid for half the tech one way (max turn limit), but then you turn us around to paying full price in the other way (beakers). That's poor maintenance of a plan.

More Brian -- You've mentioned a couple times "playing them over". I understand that desire, but I fully applaud your decision to not do so. Better a rightfully-earned failure than a tainted victory. Honesty is important.
Arathorn

Arathorn,

Thanks for the explanation of the tech strategy. It's clear now. Since I only spotted the lux tax on turn 9, the 5 science was only of rmy last 2 turns..

Also, I fully comprehend the implications of 'playing turns over'. I am an honest person. I may do that when playing by myself, if I find I did something stupid, ie moving something in the wrong direction accidentally, but not in a succession game. Certainly not in a training game. I mean, what would be the point? If I did everything perfectly I wouldnt get any critiques right?

I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I ws annoyed at myself for missing the science/luxury rate, but did not replay it. Not just for ethical reasons either. I mean really, playing and writing the summaries take enough time, why would I want to do that twice? I was annoyed, I wasn't REALLY going to redo it. I mean come on, I've got a life, and a wife.

Replaying 1 turn, really just letting the AI play its turn again just to fix the rioting? Maybe on my own to see what effect it has, but again, not in a SG, and certainly not in a training game. Again, how else would I learn the best way to avoid it?

 

[Arathorn]

Let's go, folks. Lee has posted his save. A_S is out (a replacement would be accepted, if one is interested. ChThr has first prioirty, if he has time). Charliehoke, Architect, Brian J? We alive?

Tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon (about 24 hours from this post) is the cut-off for posting a save -- for charliehoke, missing means skipped, for the others, it means no analysis.

Arathorn

 

[Snaproll]

Oh my gosh I forgot... I turned in my shadow and for some reason I thought I was done. I'm very much still in, and I'll play first thing tomorrow morning.

My apologies!

 

[ChrTh]

Originally posted by Arathorn
Let's go, folks. Lee has posted his save. A_S is out (a replacement would be accepted, if one is interested. ChThr has first prioirty, if he has time). Charliehoke, Architect, Brian J? We alive?

Tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon (about 24 hours from this post) is the cut-off for posting a save -- for charliehoke, missing means skipped, for the others, it means no analysis.

Arathorn

No time, Arathorn...sorry

 

[BrianJ]

Originally posted by Arathorn
Let's go, folks. Lee has posted his save. A_S is out (a replacement would be accepted, if one is interested. ChThr has first prioirty, if he has time). Charliehoke, Architect, Brian J? We alive?

Tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon (about 24 hours from this post) is the cut-off for posting a save -- for charliehoke, missing means skipped, for the others, it means no analysis.

Arathorn

I've been working steady overtime this week, and am still at work tonight.

I'll play on Saturday morning most likely.

 

[D9phoenix]

Arathorn: You said there was an opening, and i had a question for you. I have been playing civ3 for awhile now. Mostly a regent lvl player but i was wanting to learn how to survive the upper lvl games. I just finished DS1, and we started on DS2. I found this thread a few days ago and was interested but was full so i was content to just read it. Would you be willing to accept me as i do have the time to play and would like the experience ?

 

[Snaproll]

Hi everyone. Again I apologize for how long it took me. Here we go!

Pre-turn, 2550 BC - We have let ourselves get really behind in tech - 5 behind the Chinese and 4 behind everyone else. I shop around, and get bronze working from the Chinese and the wheel from the Egyptians, emptying our treasury. Also, lower science to 10%. I check to see if we have mounts available for our mighty mounted warriors, and we don't. I activate a worker that is mining the desert and move him to the nearby plains.

Turn 1 - 2510 BC - Our scouts spy horses south of Russia. Niagara falls grows, but still can't increase shield output very well. The mines that are being constructed on the plains and hills nearby should help that, though. The barbarian warrior close to Salamanca looks like he might be going for our workers.

Turn 2 - 2470 BC - Nope, he attacks Salamanca, and dies. A Settler finishes in Salamanca, and I set it to kick out another warrior in 2 turns for defense of that new city. I decide after long deliberation to move the settler west, to land at the base of the gold hills, giving access to several grasslands also. Should be reasonable food and good production city, and leaves enough room for another city on the cattle. One of our worker starts the long process of putting a road through the mountains towards Grand River, and, eventually, the silks that lie there. The Russians don't have the wheel, so I trade it for masonry. They would have got it from someone else anyway. Chinese are still up 2 techs now, everyone else is up one (Alphabet).

Turn 3 - 2430 BC - Scouts find a lot of silk West of India. Niagara falls is going to grow to 5 next turn, so I raise luxury takes to compensate.

Turn 4 - 2390 BC - I kind of lost track of the turns in here - sometimes I get so wrapped up in playing I forget to write turn changes down. In any case, not much happened here, other than I moved our settler into position and moved the scouts around. Looks like everyone just got mysticism, because the number of turns left to research it just dropped to 1.

Turn 5 - 2350 BC - Mysticism completed, Iron started. Settler set to high food right now, but will switch to high shields next turn, after it grows, to get the settler out. Russians were the only ones who don't have mysticism, so I get 20 gold from them for it.

Turn 6 - 2310 BC - Grand river completes a warrior, and I start it on a worker to help bring the silks in. I'm not sure about this move. Niagara is on as high shields as I can reasonably get it, which isn't much, but I do manage to cut down the settler time a little bit. Allegheny founded at the foot of the gold hills.

Turn 7 - 2270 BC - The mine is finished on the plains near Niagara Falls - helps tremendously with that city's production. Another barbarian approaches from the North. I shop around for alphabet now that we have some money again - Indian prices are the lowest, at 47 gold. I check and see that no one was writing yet. In addition, the Russians don't have alphabet, but they only have 6 gold to trade, so I don't trade yet.

Turn 8 - 2230 BC - Our scouts bring back valuable intelligence - the Chinese have horses nearby. Other than that, not much else - tech situation hasn't changed, workers are busy, and no cities grow or produce anything.

Turn 9 - 2190 BC - Niagara Falls produces settler. I decide to start a worker there - we need more. Mine completed on the hill there - now this city will be much more efficient, as it has a good number of both shields and retains its incredible food supply. I move the workers from the hill west to help build roads to our two new cities, and I retain one near Niagara falls to irrigate the other wheat. It's weird playing this game - I irrigated that wheat in my last shadow turn, and I just noticed that it wasn't irrigated in this one! How weird!

I check the diplomatic tables, and I notice the Indians just got Iron working! In fact, so did everyone else! All of them want 1gold per turn + our entire treasury (54 gold) for it. We have two settlers ready right now, so I decide to go ahead and buy it - We need to get an iron hooked up as soon as possible. We have 2 within reach!! One right by Allegheny and one a little ways north of Salamanca. The Russians and Chinese also have iron close by that I can see. Since Niagara Falls just finished the settler, I can drop luxury tax to 0%. I think the unhappiness due to the earlier whipping must have also just worn off.

Turn 10 - 2150 BC - Salamanca produces a settler, and drops to size one. Set to max food.

Summary - Two settlers running around for the next leader. We need more workers and military. I believe I have done well in catching us up scientifically, but we need work on the military now (I was in full settler producing mode). We are only one tech behind the AI, and it's horseback riding, which we don't really need since we don't have horses.

Here is the game!

Also, Arathorn, I fixed my shadow save (I think).

 

[Arathorn]

You're in. Please start playing with the 2150 save file once I give the go-ahead with the next turn. I'm pretty busy and I'm a bit behind on analysis and such.

Please read all the rules and make sure you follow the proper posting thread and the file naming conventions and all.

You'll play (officially) right after LKendter at the end of the rotation. I'll update the order on the first page, if my boss gives me another few minutes sometime today.

Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]

2550 - OUCH! Spending all our cash for techs. That's dangerous -- having some gold for buying allies, workers, etc. is often very necessary. And, could it have waited? YES!!! Thus, should it have? Probably. 4-5 techs behind is not bad at all -- very reasonable to catch up from there. It's 10-12 behind that gets problematic (and yes, I've been WAY beyond that -- and still won). Massive outpouring of cash just to get a couple techs that don't leverage very far is not a good strategy. See Lee's turns for a slightly better approach and my turns for a TON of gold saved and full tech parity (actually ahead of Russia).

Moving the worker off the desert was probably not a good option. He'd already put enough turns into that mine to probably make it worth continuing. It's like wasted worker turns on overdrive. Of course, in a sense, it's wasted where it is, so I'll give a no-call on either action. Plains before wheat? Yikes. Growth is more important, generally. Still, NF might be the exception. No weed calls yet.

2470 - Now that's a wise tech trade! You gave up something that had value now (Wheel) for something that will always have value (Masonry -- it's a required tech). And our knowledge of the Wheel might not have value much (if any) longer. Should've done it last turn, as I'm reasonably certain the same deal would've been available then, but this isn't too terribly late to do it. The real fear is that the window of opportunity on this deal would've closed before it was exploited.

2430 - You can wait until the turn AFTER it grows to up lux tax rate. Happiness is checked before the city expands. You could've saved some gold (and some agony of calculation about whether a city might grow into disorder or not -- you can always see disorder before it happens).

2390 - OUCH! again on Mysticism. 40 turns is just too long, apparently. China had it for a while and apparently somebody was able to afford it. It should've been possible to shop it around for a lot of techs. OK, 20 gold isn't terrible, but it would've been nice to get a lot more from it.

2350 - Iron working started? That's been discovered and shopped, no? If so, it makes sense to either buy it or research it at a high rate. Going min sci for a shopped tech is a BAD idea. Definitely in that choice.

2310 - Putting NF on high shields pays off with an earlier settler but it cuts into NF's growth curve. Big cities are GOOD things. Ideally, NF could run the shield squares AND still grow pretty rapidly. Not weedy, but definitely a questionable action for long-term growth. GR on worker? Well, it's not gonna finish your turn anyway. I've become convinced that changing to a settler and whipping in 6 turns (grow to size 3 and get 10 shields at the same time), then going to zero food to abandon is the best thing to do with that darn city.

2270 - 47 gold for Alphabet. Again, this is a slightly painful trade. That's full, last-civ price. If Russia could afford it, or had a tech to give in response for it, that's a GREAT time to trade, because you can get two-for-one (or thereabouts). As it is, it appears to be a "have to do something" move, which is very often a bad way to think. If it can safely wait, it should. If it can't (like selling Mysticism), get the most you can and hope it's enough -- in general.

2190 - Yeah, it *IS* weird. I think, though, that it forces each of us to constantly evaluate the situation AS IT IS -- not as we left it or as we would like it to be. That's a valuable skill for SP and even moreso in SGs, where the situation can change rapidly. Developing that wheat square is quite important and needs to be done ASAP, if not sooner. The other slave heading off west is probably good.

And our entire treasury and gpt for IW? That can certainly wait! That's horribly expensive. And it shows the short-sightedness of the move in 2350, researching IW at min sci. The AI will almost always go after some techs before others and IW is pretty high on the list. Writing (or better Philosophy) is pretty low on the list and 40 turns might be attainable.

These act-now, think-later tech tradings have done a serious number on our treasury -- you leave it in the worst shape of all the turns. Was the location of iron going to seriously affect your settler positioning? If we have it north of the gold hills/cattle line we're looking to establish, we'll probably not lose it. If not, we can't do much about it, can we? Not a horrible idea, but not necessarily the most feasible.

The two settlers are very nice -- earlier than the rest of us -- but the pop sizes are quite a bit lower than others. Trade-off of using shields rather than highest food all the time. The mined plains will be reasonably helpeful, but we gotta make sure NF doesn't shrink too small -- it has a few tiles it should be working every turn.

Why'd the settler from Salamanca go south right away? What's his goal? Would an immediate east make more sense? And thsoe settlers are going to need escorts. We have verified barbs around -- probably NW of Salamanca if not two camps, one NW and one due N. Mobilize the MP from the now-smaller cities and send them out.

NF, if left unattended, will waste some food. It's set to grow in two turns, requiring three food to do so. It has a two food surplus. Simply moving a citizen from the plains to a flood plain will cause it to grow this turn, getting the shields AND the earlier growth (the new citizen will almost assuredly work the mined plains). This act of "having your cake and eating it too...errr...having your growth and shields, too" is important. PLEASE CHANGE THIS EVERYONE!!!!

Summary:

Tech Trading: D/D- -- almost up-to-date but spent a TON of gold doing it, wasted a few turns of research
City Management: B- -- fast settlers good, spear in Sala now bad, NF worker a good idea
Allegheny Location: B -- solid position that allows for much expanding around it, doesn't waste squares, has good potential across many eras. Reasonably safe.
Scouting: B
Other: C- -- wheat by NF left undeveloped TOO long, ending settler move

Total: C

Arathorn

P.S. Let's go ahead and play the next 10 turns -- I'm not sure of ending date.
P.P.S. Lee, you're moved up and are "official" for this turn.
P.P.P.S. I'll be a bit more prompt, I hope, in reviews this time.

 

[Snaproll]

I agree with you that my tech trading needs some work - especially after reading your turns. Never would've learned that without this game, though! I guess I'm still in Regent/Monarch mode, where being behind 5 techs is unheard of, and I felt the need to get back in the race technologically, despite the expense.

Lesson learned!