LotR27 Science-Scorning Spacists

[Arathorn]

So I took a stab at a preliminary dot map. I'm not so good at these in Civ4 and knowing where Iron is could change everything.

Red dot claims two fish and could work the marble. A very good Maoi site close to home.
Pink dot gets a fish and a sheep, though the worker to/from the sheep will require a boat.
White dot claims the rest of south island and also gets two food resources but only after culture growth.
Green dot is mostly just for crabs and to be easy to defend.
Purple dot gets a couple clams and seems like a good general spot to defend.
Brown dot gets clams and enough land tiles to be useful.
Blue dot seals our peninsula. Suggested earlier for cow and such.
Purple dot is a reach to get stone (and cows and rice eventually). Doubtful we'd beat Pericles here.
Yellow dot is on a hill and gets two food resources and copper. But I don't see any way we can claim it. I just wanted to point out what I was talking about earlier.

We're going to need a boat to claim any of these dots (except blue -- or purple/yellow in theory). I would put white and green as lowest priorities. I'd probably go red/blue/purple in some order and then pink. I'd love purple or yellow, but I've been hitting the sauce pretty hard.

I'm not saying we should do this, just throwing out some idea to get discussion rolling.

Arathorn

 

[Ozbenno]

Didn't see the dotmaps before I played but anyway, play I did.

I switched religion at the start, Pericles has none so we can get an extra happy for no grief.



We are the proud owners of two new cities.





Researched Metal Casing and Priesthood and put the selector on Iron Working (for clearing jungle) but no beakers attached if we want to go for Writing (Opens Code of Laws and Alphabet) or even Monarchy or Monotheism.



I stagnated the capital (building a forge with partially built settler behind) at max pop, we can grow it in a turn if we want to get out the whip. Also getting another worker out as we have but one (need more esp iof we go IW).

BTW, you can see the power of the Great Lighthouse here, we gained 11 beakers and 1 gold per turn by settling the fourth city, mainly fron the extra trade routes.

I'm off for the next 3 days camping with the kids so tally ho until then.

 

[Arathorn]

Roster:
Arathorn - Up Now (10)
ZPV - On deck
Methos
Rex Tyrannus
Ozbenno (Just played) -- out until 12/20

Nice turns. I tend to underbuild the GLH. With that in hand (extra trade route is one of the major benefits of Currency which often triggers additional expansion), do we push for a few more cities?

Techwise, I would go IW, personally, for jungle clearing and to hope/pray we can settle some iron, so we're not fighting with archers and longbows into the gunpowder era (shudder). Does anybody have a compelling argument for something else? After IW, what? I would probably go Writing next to open up CoL and Math/Currency and such. Other thoughts? Can we go into Organized Religion (I never remember what tech that is but it would seem to be very valuable for us -- for missionaries if nothing else).

I seem to always be running games around the holidays. I am taking off Sunday for several days and I'm not sure how much access I'll have to the Internet or Civ4. It might be great and I won't miss a beat. I might completely disappear (though I doubt that). Extra flexibility about 24/72 will be allowed during the next couple weeks. Just keep us as much in the loop as possible. This is also a "GOT IT" and I'll probably play tonight, as it's my best bet for the next several days. So get your comments in early!

Any reason not to grow Cuzco and whip out the settler and then go temple? We can then run priest specialists if we need. That seems pretty obvious. Though another worker or sixteen would be good, too. I'll probably switch both new cities over to terraces. Faster growth and culture expansions? No-brainer, it seems to me. If MP are needed, I'll shoot them out from our older two cities.

Arathorn

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

Extra flexibility about 24/72 will be allowed during the next couple weeks. Just keep us as much in the loop as possible.

I will be out of pocket from the 23rd to ~the 27th. Try not to kill all the bad guys without me.

 

[Arathorn]

I'm way out of shape on writing up reports on activities. It's hard for me to pick out what's most relevant.

Techwise, we complete Iron Working and went to Monotheism for Organized Religion. We're almost done with that tech and need to plan more. We're the least advanced nation techwise, according to a pop-up. Confucianism was founded elsewhere, so CoL is out in the world somewhere.

I felt comfortable going with Monotheism because we're getting friendlier with Pericles. He offered us Open Borders. I accepted. I also made this deal.

Even if we need to take him out later, we might as well build up some diplo bonuses. He also caught the Hinduism bug, so we're even happier together. Still no tech trading possibilities, though.

Cuzco built its forge, whipped a temple, and cranked out a settler before spitting out a quechua and is now working on a worker, as we need more. But not as badly as we need more military. Other places worked primarily on terraces. Growth rocks and culture with it is nice. An old quechua went to our Maoi site and the new one is on a boat targeting the goodie hut in the tundra due south. But we need a bunch of units that I didn't build.

Terraces were the major build of my turnset. A couple got whipped and others aren't even whippable yet. Even for 1 pop, though, I whipped. Pays off, I'm almost certain.

Major step...where to settle next? Iron was the determining factor. Only two visible and one is already in Greek culture. We need to decide how/where to settle the second.

Green dot is on a hill and more defensible. Gets cows and iron.
Yellow dot loses the hill defense and but puts us behind a river and gets rice.
Red dot is similar to yellow dot but coastal. Since coastal is +2 trade routes, it seems the natural choice to me. I think the bonus food of the rice is worth waiting to get the iron until culture expansion (from Hinduism or more likely terrace).
We have a settler on a boat headed in that direction. It's on automove but should be really easy to find. Getting the iron is awfully important. Just the settler on a boat headed that way now, though.

In the meantime, we have no defender prepared for the new city and we lost one unit over near Pericles. Our quechuas took out three archers but the fourth was too much without time to heal. I was fortified on a forested hill but it wasn't enough. Oh well. We need some more units fairly quickly.

Roster:
Arathorn (Just played)
ZPV - Up Now (10)
Methos - On deck
Rex Tyrannus [out 12/23 - 12/27]
Ozbenno [out until 12/20]

Arathorn

 

[Methos]

I take it there's not sea resources for red dot? I like red dot for the additional trade routes, but green dot has better production. Yellow dot isn't an option for me. Wow, Pericles will know Math in 3 turns.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

I like green dot for the cows and extra hills. We're going to be hammer-poor in this game for a while. Is it one tile from the coast?

 

[Arathorn]

I take it there's not sea resources for red dot? I like red dot for the additional trade routes, but green dot has better production. Yellow dot isn't an option for me. Wow, Pericles will know Math in 3 turns.

Correct, no visible seafood at red. I don't think we've had a boat up that way, so there might be some in the second-ring ocean, if I recall sight distance correctly.

I don't like yellow either.

If we use this spot for our FP (which seems at least semi-viable), the extra production at green dot might be important. If we go red dot, though, we can probably squeeze another city on the southern part of the land up there for cultural block (note we have OB with Pericles right now) and even more trade routes from TGL.

I think the only reason I wouldn't go red is if we get in a race with Pericles for the spot and can found green dot and can't get to red in time.

Thinking about the settler on a boat, I would find that boat and fix the routing. I think a turn can be saved on getting the settler into position with better unit movement. My bad.

 

[·Imhotep·]

lurker's comment:

You do know that Quechuas gain +100% vs. Archery units, Rex? I wish you guys good luck with the game, it will be tough. But then you don't have pholk on the roster, so you might win ...

Edit: I'd go for green dot. A grassland cow is better than an unirrigated rice, at least until Civil Service. And you need the 2 hammers anyway...

Edit2: Actually you could move green dot 1S and settle both spots. The cities would be both coastal and get some prod from the hills + cow (green dot) and from the plains Iron (red dot).

 

[Arathorn]

I like red dot and 2S of green dot (still getting the cows but also being coastal). 2S of green dot will have the cows for food but not much more until after CS. It will have multiple hills to work. Seafood in the area is minimal, however.

Another city on an island will probably serve us better than 2S of green dot for next site, however, because any trade route to another landmass is worth more than one on the same continent. Out Maoi city can't support all our cities with multiple routes but more cities on islands will provide not only their 6 commerce from trade routes but will also increase several main continent city's commerce. We should get those out fairly quickly. But we desperately need some units, too. I would whip settlers (or chop them), though, in the next couple turnsets.

 

[Arathorn]

Roster:
Arathorn (Just played)
ZPV - SKIPPED
Methos - Up Now (10)
Rex Tyrannus [out 12/23 - 12/27] - On deck
Ozbenno [out until 12/20]

ZPV has been MIA for 48 hours, so we're going to skip him. I hate to do it, but with no word, we should keep the game going. Methos, you are UP!

 

[Methos]

I got it, but I won't be able to play until tomorrow.

 

[Ozbenno]

Red dot will get the extra trade routes for being coastal so might be better.

I'd try and get Colossus built in capital as well as we have the forge.

 

[Methos]

Unfortunately i'm going to have to ask for a skip. I have a Mac and run Civ4 using Parallels and it is having issues. I find it hilarious that the only trouble I have with my Mac is when I'm running software in Windows.

I need to load Vista on a partition and the earliest I'll be able to do that is tomorrow, so please skip me this turnset. My apologies.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

I also use a mac, but civ in parallels had...issues. I use bootcamp to dual boot now. Some times I have anomolies with the graphics but it's otherwise stable on one of the first intel iMacs with only 256mb of ram.

 

[Ozbenno]

That makes you up Rex!

 

[Methos]

I also use a mac, but civ in parallels had...issues. I use bootcamp to dual boot now. Some times I have anomolies with the graphics but it's otherwise stable on one of the first intel iMacs with only 256mb of ram.

That's what I plan to do, is set it up using Bootcamp. I have a newer Mac and I'm not sure why its having so much trouble. I had Vista setup on Bootcamp previously but I forgot that with Windows you can't just shut the lid anytime you want (hehe, that killed Vista quick), so I had to remove it and I never bothered to reset it up. Oh well, I guess its time.

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

That makes you up Rex!

Well, to that...my parents just came into town and they're sleeping in my Civ room. I won't be able to play until they leave. Probably around the 27th.

 

[Ozbenno]

Well, to that...my parents just came into town and they're sleeping in my Civ room. I won't be able to play until they leave. Probably around the 27th.

What weird priorities you have

If no-one else can, I would be able to play on the 26th.

 

[Methos]

I can try and get Bootcamp setup tomorrow, so that I can play. Rather then make it a 'got it', I'll leave it open just in case someone else is able to grab it.