LotR4 - 5CC Conquest

I see it and will try to get it done tonight.

BTW, congrats on the new addition, we will grant you extra baby time for your turns. Of course, that also means you should be up more late at night. I don't know how well you can rock and click at the same time.
 
Pre-turn - Things are looking good. They city will riot when the pop grows, but we have 5 turns to deal with that. The ivory looks pretty good.

Minas Morgul is founded and the wheat is brought into the border because of the one tile distance. I thought long and hard over moving the city on top of the hill to get all three ivory in our borders. We will have to get the border out on this city to get those in our borders. Trade will be one of our big sources of income. Since it has the wheat, I start a worker instead of a warrior.

I will have to move one warrior back for MP duty or up the lux tax. The warrior in the mountains can move one more square to the southeast before moving back in time for MP duty. He does and we spot a trove of gems in that area. We will have to have those for trade as well. I see three of them as well. The other warrior will move to the goodie hut to see what awaits us.

Popped the goodie hut and got a conscript. This isn't really a bad thing right now. He will head to the southeast to scout. It looks like we are on a thin island or pennisula.

We get Cerimonial Burial and start Bronze Working.

The granery in Minas Ithil is completed and we start a settler.

Minas Morgul finishes its worker and starts a warrior.

Pop a second goodie hut and get 3 angry barbs.....we get an elite warrior with three hp.

Minas Ithil completes a settler and begins a temple.

Bronze Working completes and we start Iron Working. It is offical we are on an island by ourselves. One thing nice is that there are some really good city spots that will be blockbusters. Unfortunately we can not fill our island completely.

Settler and warrior are in position. There are 5 gems, 4 shielded grasslands and a cow for the next city, it is also on the coast. Maybe Arathorn can give us some help with the city names. I know my simaralian(?) is here somewhere.

LotR4 2470 BC Save Game

For those of you who are following along with us here is our blessed homeland. Note the two dots suggesting possible city placements. It is of course up to the next player as to were it goes ultimately.
 
Just a couple comments on the city locations:

Fresh water really isn't important for a 5CC game. An aqueduct is only 100 shields, which isn't that much for a powerhouse city. Minas Morgul would have been better off one W to pull in the wheat.

Blue Dot's going to be hurting for food. It'll need a harbor (though they are half price) to grow above size 5, will be stuck working mostly water with no shields, and can NEVER grow above size 14. That's terrible for a 5CC. I'd strongly think about skipping that spot and founding a city across that water gap instead.

Red dot also can't grow above size 16. Move it one N and suffer the one square of overlap, so it can pull in several more plains and have that grassland available to irrigate (after electricity.)

Careful with that settler in the SE too - we can't get irrigation there before Electricity. Make sure he's on the coast so the city can build a harbor - one square SE of where he is would be good.

EDIT Actually, I miscounted - one north of red dot has NO overlap, and should be a good spot. It still won't have enough food to work many hills until rails, though.
 
Originally posted by T-hawk
Fresh water really isn't important for a 5CC game. An aqueduct is only 100 shields, which isn't that much for a powerhouse city. Minas Morgul would have been better off one W to pull in the wheat.
Click to expand...

Hehe. Go read our RBD9 game (it's on page 3), then come back and say that :)

It's not just 100 shields. It's being able to grow above size 6 without waiting on construction, or while in the middle of a wonder build, or ...
 
Good point - I forgot about waiting for Construction. Been playing Emperor and Deity where the tech comes in before you can blink. :crazyeye:

But anyway, the other locations are really important. If we do want the fifth city on our home island, the only good spot is NE or NW of the northernmost ivory (NE for fresh water, NW pulls in a whale).
 
Issues/comments/suggestions.

*IF* people want to use more Lord of the Rings city names, some suggestions are Rivendell, Imladris (yes, it's the same city but it looks different), Minas Tirith, Hobbiton... My mind is struggling a bit to come up with other cities, like the ones in the south or such. Name whatever you like.

I agree with moving the current proposed location one SE to get coastal access (we'll need to be crossing that channel relatively soon for sure). Red dot should also be moved one north.

That's four cities -- with a fifth either in the northeast, north, northwest or across the water. None of the options are optimal. Northeast will hurt for food. North will be mostly water and struggle for shields. Northwest looks even weaker. Across the water is delayed and kinda far-from-home. Cities 3 and 4 look easy, but....

How much of our land can we lock up culturally (with two expansions) with the current and proposed locations? I struggle to count squares without a grid.... We'd need ~10 troops (by my initial guestimate count) to lock our island from opposing settlers. Of course, cities far from home might give us a reasonable worker supply....hmmm....

One other issue is that we would need a city across the water in order to set up colonies to get goodies on that continent home to our lands. We were lucky enough to have horses but we might need some serious colonies to get other things. We should have two luxes monopolized and adequate to trade, though, which will be VERY helpful.

I am marginally in favor of the two modified city locations and saving city 5 for across the water, but I am not at all certain that's the best thing to do. Second choice is T-hawk's north location by the ivory -- probably NE of it for the extra hills in range come railroads.

We *could* found a temporary fifth city by the west wheat to crank workers and a final settler when we have ships to cross the water.... It might be useful, depending on our tech pace and priority.

I would advocate delaying the research of horseback riding as long as is feasible to build chariots for upgrades.

Other questions/issues:
- Are we going to make a Lighthouse push? It is continents but it might be very useful nonetheless.
- Should the capital move? It's not an issue RIGHT NOW, but it might be something to consider.
- I (and meldor) had significantly less information available when deciding on 2nd city location. It may not be completely optimal, but at the time, we knew it had access to one wheat, one ivory, and freshwater (which, as Jaffa said, is important even for a 5CC).
- Barbs are on -- I think trying to get a few camps for promotions and/or cash is a not-bad idea. But be warned about unescorted troops.

Arathorn
 
I originally meant for the settler to be on the coast next to the cow per my original post. I agree with waiting for the fifth city for peaking at the other land mass. The reason I went for IW instead of the cheapest tech was to see if we had iron before we settled all of our cities. I had not thought about abandoning a city that might be a reasonable thing to do as we might even use it later in conjunction with the FP to get a lock on a needed resource.
 
How much of our land can we lock up culturally (with two expansions) with the current and proposed locations? I struggle to count squares without a grid.... We'd need ~10 troops (by my initial guestimate count) to lock our island from opposing settlers.

Who cares about locking the island? Just make sure we have all the lux claimed/blocked. The AIs don't throw resources at faraway colonies, and we can easily conquer any such cities whenever we go to war with that civ. Also, I'd figure on three expansions: our cities will build the cultural improvements quickly (we're religious) and probably hit 1000 culture before AI settlers come our way (it is only Monarch.) Three expansions will keep all the lux except for the north ivory (if we don't found next to it), needing to block only two squares: the easternmost tundra square in the south and Blue Dot.

I am marginally in favor of the two modified city locations and saving city 5 for across the water, but I am not at all certain that's the best thing to do. Second choice is T-hawk's north location by the ivory -- probably NE of it for the extra hills in range come railroads.

I'd say take the northern lake location as soon as we can anyway, but don't build any buildings there (maybe a barracks), until we decide if we want to disband it and found across the channel. The hills are a good point. It'll take some time to grow to size 12 (could join a worker for the last size or two), but can work two hills at 12 before rails, and will then have 13 shields; not great but adequate. If all five cities stay on our island, no need to move the capital (northern lake won't have many shields to lose to corruption.)

Are we going to make a Lighthouse push? It is continents but it might be very useful nonetheless.

Only if there are no civs on that adjacent landmass. If there are, we'll go conquer them, and probably not go much further during the Lighthouse's lifetime.

Meldor: No FP for us; remember you need to reach half the optimal-cities number to build it.
 
Leontopithecus founded.

Next settler built, and moved to position north of red dot. But a culture boundary from across the sea has swallowed the fish square so if we build here we're not going to get the fish until we go and destroy that city.

Built some workers.

A barbarian from out of the mountains is approaching Minas Morgul.


2070BC
 
Inherited turn:

Entertainer bad. Lux tax to 20%.

2030 BC: Mundburg (look it up) founded where the settler was. We did lose the fish immediately, but it won't be long before we attack. The warrior moves south a square and sees an Egyptian city - but there's no unit in it so we can't make contact! Never saw that happen before.

We discover Iron Working. We do have one iron, right outside Mundburg. Great.

Next turn, Egypt is on the F4 screen (although we still haven't seen a unit). We have no tech they lack, and they have Masonry which we don't. They only have 2 cities besides the capital, though - we're already ahead there.

Tough choice whether to research anything right now. We have all the tech necessary to attack Egypt. I decide to try for Mysticism at minimum science. (If someone else gets it first, nothing lost - those minimal beakers do still reduce your buy-in cost.)

Built several warriors, because they're real cheap, we need the police, and we can upgrade them.

I played to 1750 to even up the year numbers. (Arathorn didn't specify the turn length in the initial post - is it 10 turns from now on?). I didn't build a fifth settler - I think we should definitely get a look at Egypt's land before we commit. Maybe if we get lucky they'll build a nice wonder for us just before we capture Thebes. :)

Started a road towards the ivory, iron, and Mundburg.

Minas Ithil built a couple more workers, and a barracks, and can now produce warriors one per turn. Lux is at 30% right now, but as soon as Minas Ithil produces one more police unit this turn, it can go back down. (I sent one warrior north from Ithil as insurance against another barb that appeared.)

lotr4-1750bc.jpg


Back to you, Arathorn?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/LotR4_1750_BC.zip

Also, are we patching? I haven't yet.
 
Aarrggh...past my 24 hours to claim... Sorry. I got it.

And, yes, we are patching. All SGs generally patch -- I'm keeping two builds (1.21 and 1.29) on my computer for SGs vs. Epic switching.

As for techs...ummm...map-making?

Arathorn
 
Down to 10 turns each now.

Highlights of my reign include

- Researching Alphabet in 1750 BC at reasonable rates
- Changing Leon to temple
- Getting $25 from a barb camp
- Building a slew (ok, 4 or 5) chariots for later upgrading
- Bringing ivory in and lowering lux tax to 10%

I'm hoping we can trade Alphabet to Egypt for another tech and work our way to map-making. It's gonna be a while before galleys. We're already paying maintenance/upkeep on our units and it will only get worse. MM will grow next turn to city size, but that doesn't affect despotism, unfortunately. A temp city -- just to get the extra 4 units free support -- might well be worth the people investment.

Anyway, save is at

http://www.civfanatic.net/uploads/lotr4-1500bc.zip

meldor is up. Jaffa on deck. (Jbob skipped until he posts his "aliveness".) This is 1.29f patched.

Arathorn
 
1500 BC (Pre-turn)
Change Minos Morgul to settler. I will build a temp city to bring in the last ivory. This city can be abandon once we find a better spot. We finish Alphabet and start writing. It will be 17 turns at -3gpt. The fifth city will help with that.

1400 BC We get Alphabet and go for Writing. Cleo laughs at any reasonable deal. She is three techs ahead of us. We will pry them from her, even if it is from her lifeless fingers. We start the Colossus.

1300 BC
The Egyptians start the pyramid.

When Throw Away city is built economy has gone from -3gpt to +3gpt. Science is turned up a notch to shave a turn off of writing.

Need to save time of the Colossus. This is a critical wonder for us. I started it right after the temple finished. 37 turns out.

LotR4 1250 Saved Game
 
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